The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White
page 52 of 339 (15%)
page 52 of 339 (15%)
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began to congregate, forsaking the chimnies and houses, they
roosted every night in the osier-beds of the sits of that river. Now this resorting towards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in and out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five swallows hovering round and settling on the roof of the county- hospital. Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator? * (* See Adamson's Voyage to Senegal.) I acquiesce entirely in your opinion--that, though most of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and hide with us during the winter. As to the short-winged soft-billed birds, which come trooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect about them. I watched them narrowly this year, and saw them |
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