OF SELBORNE. 
163 
migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; 
because, if we reflect, a bird maj 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 that 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, 
" Ranged in figure wedge their way, 
and set fortk 
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 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 nar- 
rowest space. 
In former letters we have considered whether it was 
probable that woodcocks in moonshiny 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 its 
neck,^ on which were engraven the arms of the king of 
Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that 
time has often told to a near relation of mine ; and, to the 
best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of 
the rector.^ 
* T have read a like anecdote of a swan. — G. W. 
2 We suspect that this bird was a cormorant, and that the rector of • 
