OF NATURAL HISTORY. 475 



A quail, it muft be allowed, feems to be very much unqualified 

 for a long migration ; for its tail is (hort, the bird never rifes more 

 than twenty or thirty feet from the ground, and it i'eldom flies above 

 three hundred yards at a time. Belon, however, an author of great 

 fagacity and credit, tells us, that, in his pafTage from Rhodes to 

 Alexandria, many quails, flying from north to fouth, were taken in 

 his fhip. From this circumftance, he remarks, ' 1 am perfuaded 

 ' that they Ihift places j for formerly, when I failed out of the Ifle 

 ' of Zant to Morea, or Negroponr, in the fpring, I obferved quails 



* flying the contrary way, at which time, alfo, a great many were 

 ' taken in our fhip.' This traverfe they might be enabled to ac- 

 fiomphfh by paflTmg from one ifland to another in the Mediterra- 

 nean. 



Inftances of fwallows and fome other birds alighting on the mafls 

 and cordage of vefTels, at confiderable diftances from any fhoie, are 

 not fo numerous as might be expeded. Neither have they been 

 often obferved flying over feas in great flocks. Mr Peter Collinfon, 

 in a letter printed in the Philofophical Tranfadions, fays, ' that Sir 

 ' Charles Wager had frequently informed him, that, in one of his 



* voyages home in the fpring, as he came into foundings in our 



* channel, a great flock of fwallows almoft covered his rigging ; 



* that they were nearly fpent and familhed, and were only feathers 

 ^ and bones ; but, being recruited by a night's reft, they took their 



* flight in the morning.' 



M. Adanfon, in his voyage, informs us, that, about fifty leagues 

 from the coaft of Senegal, four fwallows fettled upon the (hip, 

 on the fixth day of Odtober ; that thefe birds were taken ; and that 

 he knew them to be the true fwallow of Europe, which he con- 

 jeftures were then returning to the coaft of Africa. The Hon, 

 Daines Barrington, with more probability, fuppofes that thefe fwal- 



3 O 2 lows 



y 



