OF SELBOBNE. 
45 
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 bide 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 suspect 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 found any of 
them in a torpid state in the winter. But with regard to 
their migration, what difficulties attend that supposition ! 
that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never flit 
but from hedge to hedge) , should be able to traverse vast seas 
and continents, in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the 
regions of Africa ! 
^ See Adanson's Voyage to Senegal. — G. W. 
The late Dean of Manchester, the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, furnished 
an interesting note to this passage for Mr. Bennett's edition of this work, 
to the effect that late broods of young swifts, as soon as they leave the 
nest, are often obliged to migrate at once (see White's observations in 
Letter LII. to the Hon. Daines Barrington); and that the various 
species of hirundines remain in their nests tiU they are more completely 
feathered than any other birds, so that when they come forth at last, they 
are ready for flight. Whether the same individuals of a species, amongst 
birds, ever cross the equator is a question upon which ornithologists are 
not unanimously agreed. Certain it is, however, that the same species 
is often found on both sides of the line, as in the case of the common 
swallow, which, spending the summer in Europe, passes some portion of 
the year also at the Cape of Good Hope. On this subject the reader 
may be referred to an interesting article "On some new or little- 
known points in the Economy of the Common Swallow," by Messrs. 
Sharpe and Dresser, published in the " Proceedings of the Zoological 
Society," 1870, p. 244.— Ed. 
^ Some further observations on this subject, tending to a solution of 
the difficulties referred to, will be found in Letter XXXIII. to Pennant, 
and Letter IX. to the Hon. Daines Barrington. — Ed. 
