If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last
Michaelmas-day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning: at
first there was a vast fog; but, by the time that I was got seven or
eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a
delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath or common, and
I could discern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers of
swallows (hirundines rusticae) clustering on the stinted shrubs and
bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air
became clear and pleasant they all were on the wing at once; and,
by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward towards the
sea: after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and then a
straggler.
I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow kind
disappear some and some gradually, as they come, for the bulk of
them seem to withdraw at once: only some stragglers stay behind a
long while, and do never, there is the greatest reason to believe,
leave this island.
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