OF SELBORNE. 45 



attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the 

 equator ? l 



I acquiesce entirely in your opinion that, though most 

 of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay 

 behind and bide with us during the winter. 



As to the short- winged soft-billed birds, which come 

 trooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even 

 what to suspect about them. I watched them narrowly 

 this year, and saw them abound till about Michaelmas, 

 when they appeared no longer. Subsist they cannot openly 

 among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive ; and, 

 as to their hiding, no man pretends to have found any of 

 them in a torpid state in the winter. But with regard to 

 their migration, what difficulties attend that supposition ! 

 that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never flit 

 but from hedge to hedge) , should be able to traverse vast seas 

 and continents, in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the 

 regions of Africa ! 2 



1 See Adanson's Voyage to Senegal. G. W. 



The late Dean of Manchester, the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, famished 

 an interesting note to this passage for Mr. Bennett's edition of this work, 

 to the effect that late broods of young swifts, as soon as they leave the 

 nest, are often obliged to migrate at once (see White's observations in 

 Letter LII. to the Hon. Daines Barrington); and that the various 

 species of hirundines remain in their nests till they are more completely 

 feathered than any other birds, so that when they come forth at last, they 

 are ready for flight. Whether the same individuals of a species, amongst 

 birds, ever cross the equator is a question upon which ornithologists are 

 not unanimously agreed. Certain it is, however, that the same species 

 is often found on both sides of the line, as in the case of the common 

 swallow, which, spending the summer in Europe, passes some portion of 

 the year also at the Cape of Good Hope. On this subject the reader 

 may be referred to an interesting article " On some new or little- 

 known points in the Economy of the Common Swallow," by Messrs. 

 Sharpe and Dresser, published in the " Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society," 1870, p. 244. ED. 



2 Some further observations on this subject, tending to a solution of 

 the difficulties referred to, will be found in Letter XXXIII. to Pennant, 

 and Letter IX. to the Hon. Daines Barrington. ED. 



