256 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



seeing where it went. The bird on the board, though 

 exposed to a full sun, yet I presume, from a chilness 

 of the air, did not revive so as to be able to fly *.'' 



White of Selborne was so much convinced of the 

 probability of swallows remaining hid or torpid during 

 winter, that he attempted to watch them to their retreat, 

 and actually saw them dart down above some low 

 shrub?, for several evenings together. " This spot," 

 he goes on to say, " in many respects seems to be well 

 adapted for their winter residence, for, in many parts, 

 it is as steep as the roof of any house, and therefore 

 secure from the annoyances of water ; and it is, more- 

 over, clothed with beechen shrubs, which, being 

 stunted and bitten by sheep, make the thickest covert 

 imaginable, and are so entangled as to be impervious 

 to the smallest spaniel ; besides, it is the nature of 

 underwood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter, 

 so that, with the leaves on the ground and those on 

 the twigs, no shelter can be more complete. From 

 all these circumstances put together, it is more than 

 probable that this lingering flight at so late a season 

 of the year (Oct. 22d) never departed from the island. 

 I have only to add, that were the bushes, which cover 

 some acres, and are not my property, to be grubbed 

 up and carefully examined, probably those late broods, 

 and perhaps the whole aggregate body of the window- 

 swallows of this district, might be found there in dif- 

 ferent secret dormitories ; and that, so far from with- 

 drawing into warmer climes, it would appear that 

 they never depart three hundred yards from the 

 village t." 



Pursuing this idea, our ingenious naturalist carried 

 the investigation thus suggested into actual trial, 

 \vhich he thus elsewhere records : tC I therefore de- 

 termined to make some search about the south-east 

 end of the hill, where I imagined they might slumber 

 * Phil. Trans, for 1763. f P- 293, Sir W. J.'s edit. 



