40 
TRAVELS 
We experienced additional pleafure every time the fifliermen 
returned from their labour. Joy feemed to brighten up their 
countenances ; their approach was announced to us long before 
we law them, by the flocks of fea fwallows (Jlerna hirundo , Lin.) 
which hovered in the air, feeming, by their cries, to welcome their 
arrival on the fliore. Thefe birds feed on the fmall fifties, which 
the fifliermen call out to them, or leave in the boats when they 
clear out their nets. There appeared to be an agreement and un- 
derftanding betwixt the men and thefe birds, which depend upon 
the fifhery for fubfiftence and fupport during this feafon. They 
came duly at the fame hour in the morning, as if to inform the 
fifliermen it was time to begin their work ; and the latter needed 
no other regulator. The birds fet off with the boats, and ferved 
the fifliers as guides in the profecution of their calling, by hovering 
over thofe parts of the lake where the fifti were collected in the 
largeft ftioals. The fight of thefe birds is particularly keen, fo 
that when the fifliermen heard their cries, and faw them plunging 
into the water, they knew thofe were the moft proper places to 
calf their nets in with a probability of fuccefs; and herein they 
were fure not to be deceived, but, on the contrary, never failed to 
take the moll fifti where they were dire<fled by the birds. The 
fifliermen had fuch an attachment to thefe fwallows, that they ex- 
prefled much uneafinefs whenever we feemed defirous to take 
feme of them by way of ipecimens. The birds were become lb 
tame and familiar, that they would feize the fmall fifti in the 
nets, and even in the boats, in the prefence of the fifliermen; 
and 
