OF SELBORNE 115 



treat 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 me 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 thalt 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 moon-shiny 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 it's neck,^ 

 on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark. This 



1 T Paradise Lost, vii. , 426-30.] 



2 [See Col. Irby's Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar^ p. 14. So, too, 

 though White was not aware of it, our own swallows and other birds pass in parties 

 along our south coast eastwards, until the Channel has narrowed sufficiently for 

 their purposes.] 



^ I have read a like anecdote of a swan. 



