NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 107 



Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat 

 before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially 

 birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more 

 impatient of a sultry climate ; but then I cannot help wondering why 

 kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the 

 severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should 

 want to migrate from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the 

 winters of Andalusia. 



It does not appear to jjae that much stress may be laid on the 

 difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason 

 of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; because, if we reflect, a bird may 

 travel from England to the Equator without launching out and exposing 

 itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and 

 again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence advance this 

 obvious remark, because my brother has always found that some of 

 his birds, and particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their 

 pains in crossing the Mediterranean; for when arrived at Gibraltar 

 they do not 



' ' Rang'd in figure wedge their way, 



And set forth 



Their airy caravan high over seas 



Flying, and over lands with mutual wing 



Easing their flight :" . . . .MILTON. 



but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a 

 company ; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and 

 water, direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest 

 passage they can find. They usually slope across the bay to the south- 

 west, and so pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the 

 narrowest space. 



In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that 

 woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the German ocean from 

 Scandinavia. As a proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea, 

 considerable as it is, I shall relate the following incident, which, 

 though mentioned to have happened so many years ago, was strictly 

 matter of fact : As some people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, 

 in the county of Sussex, they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 

 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck,* on which were engraven the 

 arms of the king of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at 

 that time has often told to a near relation of mine ; and, to the best of 

 my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the rector. 



At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that will take the 

 trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come ; if I 

 lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. 

 One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were 

 times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would 

 drop again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the 

 muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them ; whether this strange 

 laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume 

 to say. 



* "I have read a like anecdote of a swan." 



