40 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
Query. — Might not Canary-birds be naturalized to this climate, 
provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of 
some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. ? Before 
winter perhaps they might be hardened, and able to shift for 
themselves. 
About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at 
Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the 
Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I could not help 
being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind 
which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, 
that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the 
chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds 
of the aits of that river, Now this resorting towards that element, 
at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to 
the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under 
water. A Swediah naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, 
that he talks, in his " Calendar of Flora," as familiarly of the 
swallow's going under water in the beginning of September, as 
he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 
An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he 
saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying 
in and out of its nest in the Borough : and I myself, on the 
twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling through Oxford), 
saw four or five swallows hovering round and settling on the 
roof of the county hospital. 
Now, is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had 
not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of 
the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree 
or Senegal, almost as far as the equator? I acquiesce entirely 
in your opinion — that, though most of the swallow kind may 
migrate, yet that some do stay behind, and hide with us during 
the winter. 
As to the short-winged soft-billed birds which come trooping 
in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to think 
about them. I watched them narrowly this year, and saw them 
abound till about Michaelmas, when they appeared no longer. 
Subsist they cannot openly among us and yet elude the eyes of 
the inquisitive : and, as to their hiding, no man pretends to have 
