[ 461 •] 
Ing the multitudes I have feen on thefe reeds and 
willows in the autumn ; if they took their winter’s 
refidence under water, it is moft reafonable to think, 
in a river fo frequented, and in fo long a courfe of 
years, fome would have been found in that fituation. 
Another circumftance I muft add; in great towns 
remote from water, where rivers and reeds are not 
near, I have frequently obferved that, a little before the 
fwallows depart, they, every morning early, gather 
together on the roofs of large houfes, expofed to the 
morning fun : this they daily do for fome time, to 
colled; themfelves, before they take their flight. 
Next, to confirm my opinion, that the migration 
of fome fpecies of fwallows is certain, I think I have 
fome undoubted proofs. 
I have often heard Sir Charles Wager, firft lord of 
the admiralty, relate that, in one of his voyages home, 
in the fpring of the year, as he came into foundings 
in our channel, a great flock of fwallows came and 
, fettled on all his rigging : every rope was covered, 
they hung on one another like a fwarm of bees ; the 
decks and carvings were filled with them ; they 
feemed almoft fpent and famifhed, and were only 
feathers and bones ; but, being recruited with a night’s 
reft, they took their flight in the morning. 
Capt. Wright, a very honeft man, whom I could 
depend on, told me, the like happened to him, in a 
voyage from Philadelphia hither. 
But a yet ftronger confirmation of the fwallows 
being birds of paflage is the obfervation in Mr. Adan- 
fon’s hiftory of Senegal, lately publifhed; which is, 
as near as may be literally translated, from the author’s 
own words; viz. “ The fixth of the fame month, 
O 0 o 2 “ (October) 
