96 NATURAL HISTORY 
morning the brood forfook their nell, and were flying round the 
village. From this day I never faw one of the fwallow kind till 
November the third ; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, houfe-mar- 
tins were playing all day long by the fide of the hanging wood, 
and over my fields. Did thefe fmall weak birds, fome of which 
were neftlings twelve days ago, (hift their quarters at this late fea- 
fon of the year to the other fide of the northern tropic ? Or rather, 
is it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, 
fteep covert, or perhaps fandbank, lake or pool (as a more 
northern naturalift would fay), may become ihtn bybernaculum, and 
afford them a ready and obvious retreat ? 
We now begin to expeft our vei'nal migration of ring-oufels 
every week. Peifons worthy of credit affure me that ring-oufels 
were feen at Ckrijlmas 1770 in the forefl of Bere, on the fouthern 
verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migra- 
tions are only internal, and r.Jt extended to the continent fouth- 
ward, if they do at fiiil come at all from the northern parts of 
this illand only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from 
whence they willj it is plain, from the fearlefs difrcgard that they 
fliew for men or guns, that they have been little accuftomed to 
places of much refort. Navigators mention that in the IJle of 
Afcenfion, and other fuch defolate diilrifts, birds are fo little acquaint- 
ed with the human form that they fettle on men's fhoulders ; and 
have no more dread of a failor than they would have of a goat 
that was grazing. A young man at Lezves, in Suffcx, affured me 
that about feven years ago ring-oufels abounded fo about that 
town in the autumn that he killed fixteen himfelf in one afternoon : 
he added further, that fome had appeared fince in every autumn ; 
but he could not find that any had been obferved before the feafon 
in which he Ihot fo many. I myfelf have found thefe birds in 
little 
