4$ NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Observations. 



mer evenings, in damp and moist places, the air 

 is full. They come hither in the summer, be- 

 cause our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in 

 other countries, and for that reason breeds greater 

 quantities of insects. If the air be hot and dry, 

 the gnats die of themselves ; and even the swal- 

 lows will be found famished, arid fall down dead, 

 when on the wing, for want of food. In the like- 

 manner, when the cold weather comes in, the 

 insects all die, and then, of necessity, the swal- 

 lows quit us, and follow their food. This they do 

 in going off sometimes in vast flights like a cloud ; 

 and sometimes, when the wind grows fair, they 

 go away a few at a time, not staying at all upon 

 the coast. This passing and repassing of the 

 swallows is observed no where so much as on this 

 eastern coast, namely, from above Harwich to 

 the east point of Norfolk, called Winterton 

 Ness, north, which is all right against Holland; 

 the passage of the sea being, as I suppose, too 

 broad from Flam borough Head, and the shore 

 of Holderness, in Yorkshire," 8tc. 



That there have been many well-authenticated 

 instances of the birds being found torpid under 

 water, or in crevices of rocks, both here and in 

 some other countries, cannot be denied. But a 

 migration of the major part of these birds is not 

 to be contradicted, by what seems to be rather; 

 the effect of chance than design. Those birds, 

 that have been lately hatched, and have not ac- 



