108 MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 



arrival or departure in flocks, but with the excep- 

 tion of straggling parties of ten or twelve at a time, 

 few have been fortunate enough to see them either 

 come or go; whence it has been inferred that they 

 pursue their course at night. And that this is the 

 case, we can give tolerably good evidence from actual 

 observation. Happening to be at Fecamp, a sea- 

 port at the foot of the highest cliffs in France, 

 immediately opposite the English coast, on the 14th 

 of September, 1833, we had ascended the heights 

 to visit the ruins of an old chapel before sunrise. 

 On looking towards the sea, the first object pre- 

 senting itself was a flight of about one hundred 

 Swallows, evidently just making the land, and 

 whirling in a hurried manner over the upper ledge 

 of the precipice. On the supposition that these 

 birds had quitted the British shores about an hour 

 before dawn, they would naturally have arrived at 

 the point where they were thus seen landing : others 

 probably had come in before, as in the course of the 

 morning we saw, on the roof of a large building in 

 the town, which was exposed to the full force of 

 the sun's rays, an infinitely greater number of 

 Swallows collected together than we had observed 

 throughout the whole of the season. 



That this is the practice of many other birds, 

 indeed, is well known, particularly of those which 

 are in the habit of feeding at night. In the fen 

 countries, for instance, which, on account of their 

 ditches and marshes, are favourite haunts for water- 

 birds, in almost every still night, more especially 

 about the time of their usual journeys, either to or 

 from the fens, the whistling sound of thousands of 



