SWALLOWS. 47 



companions, and seemed bewildered; they then, 

 however, turned about, and darted away with the 

 greatest velocity, in the same direction as the others. 

 The remainder were let out in the course of the day, 

 at intervals, between the hours of eleven and four 

 o'clock, all of which took the same direction as their 

 predecessors." 



This is one of the most minute and satisfactory 

 accounts of migration we ever met with, and although 

 these birds were not, in this case, compelled by im- 

 mediate hunger, (for the stomachs of several found 

 dead were full of the remains of their common food, 

 consisting of small insects, spiders, c.) there never- 

 theless can be no doubt that one of their chief rea- 

 sons for quitting us is want of food; for in Ceylon, 

 where the species are said to be similar to our own*, 

 and where the climate is such as to allow of a per- 

 petual supply of food, they never quit the island. 

 Why, indeed, they ever should quit those favoured 

 spots, where they can exist in the midst of plenty, 

 without wandering to distant regions, is the most 

 surprising part of their history; and it is difficult to 

 account for a flight of Swallows departing from the 

 warm climate of the tropics, to pass their short Sum- 

 mers in such remote and uncongenial quarters of the 

 globe as Iceland, in the north, and Port Famine, near 

 Cape Horn, in the south, in both of which inhospit- 

 able regions they are found, as well as near the still 

 more cheerless shores of Hudson's Bay, where the 

 supply of food is more particularly precarious, owing 

 to the large masses of ice, which hang upon the 

 northern sides of the bay until the beginning of 



* Perceval's Ceylon. 



