NATUEAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE. 107 
"Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat 
before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially 
birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more 
impatient of a sultry climate ; but then I cannot help wondering why 
kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the 
severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should 
want to migrate from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the 
winters of Andalusia. 
It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the 
difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason 
of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; because, if we reflect, a bird may 
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 
' ' Rang'd in figure wedge their way, 
... . . . And set forth 
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 at 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 
narrowest 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. 
At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that will take the 
trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come ; if I 
lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. 
One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were 
times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would 
drop again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the 
muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them ; whether this strange 
laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume 
to say. 
^ "I have read a like anecdote of a swan." 
4 
