88 
MIGRATION AND FLIGHT. 
or go ; whence it has been inferred, that they pursue their 
course at night. And that this is the case we can give 
tolerably good evidence from actual observation. Happening 
to he at Fecamp, a seaport at the foot of the highest cliffs in 
France, immediately opposite the English coast, on the 14th 
of September, 1833, we had ascended the heights to visit the 
ruins of an old chapel before sunrise. On looking towards 
the sea, the first object presenting itself was a flight of about 
one hundred Swallows, evidently just making the land, and 
whirling in a hurried manner over the upper ledge of the 
precipice. On the supposition that these birds had quitted 
the British shores about an hour before dawn, they would 
naturally have arrived at the point where they were thus seen 
landing : others probably had come in before ; as in the course 
of the morning we saw, on the roof of a large building in the 
town, which was exposed to the full force of the sun’s rays, 
an infinitely greater number of Swallows collected together 
than we had observed throughout the whole of the season. 
That this is the practice of many other birds indeed is well 
known, particularly of those which are hi the habit of feeding 
at night. In the fen countries, for instance, which, on account 
of their ditches and marshes, are favourite haunts for water- 
birds, in almost every still night, more especially about the 
time of their usual journeys either to or from the fens, the 
whistling sound of thousands of wings, or the shrill notes of 
call by which these vast flights are kept together in the 
darkness of night, may he heard overhead. 
Birds too, in their longer flights, no doubt avail them- 
selves of different currents in the air ; for we know that often, 
when the lower stream of air is blowing from the west, 
another stream far above may he blowing from another 
direction ; this may he frequently seen by the motion of the 
upper clouds moving in contrary directions from those at a 
lower level. Those most beautiful of all the feathered race, 
the Birds of Paradise, (not only distinguished by their bril- 
liant plumage, hut from their being singularly decorated with 
tufts or trains of light, loose, fringy feathers, which render it 
difficult for them to fly, excepting against the wind, which 
