OF SELBORNE 139 



LETTER IX 



Fyfield, near Andovek, Feb. 12, 1771. 

 Dear Sir, 



You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; and the 

 well attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom 

 seem to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many 

 of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but 

 lay themselves up like insects and bats in a torpid state, 

 to slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the 

 return of the sun and fine weather awakens them. 



But then we must not, I think, deny migration in 

 general ; because migration certainly does subsist in some 

 places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed 

 me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demon- 

 stration for many weeks together, both spring and fall : 

 during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse 

 the Straits from north to south, and from south to north, 

 according to the season. And these vast migrations 

 consist not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, 

 oro pendolos or golden thrushes, etc., etc., and also many 

 of our soft-billed summer-birds of passage ; and moreover 

 of birds which never leave us, such as all the various 

 sorts of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years 

 ago, gives a curious account of the incredible armies of 

 hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing 

 the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides 

 the above-mentioned, he remarks that the procession is 

 swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures. 



Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa 

 should retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire 

 to jnilder regions, and especially birds of prey, whose 

 blood being heated with -hot animal food, are more 



