234. NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER IX. 



TO THE SAME. 



Fyfield, near Andover, Feb. 12, 177I- 

 DEAR SIR; 



You are, I know, no great friend to 

 migration ; and the well-attested accounts 

 from various parts of the kingdom seem to 

 justify you in your suspicions, that at least 

 many of the swallow kind do not leave us 

 in the Winter, but lay themselves up like 

 insects and bats, in a torpid state, and 

 slumber away the more uncomfortable 

 months till the return of the sun and fine 

 weather awakens them. 



But then we must not, I think, deny 

 migration in general ; because migration 

 certainly does subsist in some places, as 

 my brother in Andalusia has fully informed 

 me. Of the motions of these birds he has 

 ocular demon.stration, for many weeks to- 



