236 HIRUNDINID^l. 



disappeared before morning. The author of the Natural 

 History of Arragon says they arrive there very early in the 

 spring. In the direct line of their northern course, and 

 having passed over France, Sir Charles Wager says, " In 

 the spring of the year, as I came into soundings in our 

 Channel, a great flock of Swallows came and settled 

 on all my rigging ; every rope was covered ; they hung on 

 one another like a swarm of bees, the decks and carving 

 were filled with them. They seemed almost famished and 

 spent, and were only feathers and bone ; but being re- 

 cruited with a night's rest, took their flight in the morn- 

 ing." In reference to their return by the same line of 

 route, Gilbert White, in his 23rd letter, says, " If ever I 

 saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas 

 day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning ; at 

 first there was a vast fog ; but by the time I was got 

 seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun 

 broke out into a delicate warm day. We were then on 

 a large heath or common, and I could discern as the 

 mist began to break away, great numbers of Swallows 

 clustering on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they 

 had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became 

 clear and pleasant, they all were on the wing at once ; 

 and by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward 

 towards the sea ; after this I did not see any more flocks, 

 only now and then a straggler." 



Another line of migration pursued by these birds, as well 

 as many others of our summer visiters, is by Malta, Sicily, 

 and Italy, and still further to the eastward. Mr. Thomp- 

 son of Belfast has published in the eighth volume of 

 the Annals of Natural History an interesting account of 

 the migratory birds seen by him while sailing in the 

 Mediterranean in the spring of 1841, from which the 



