"
This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind
had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not
one swallow to be seen of near a million, which I believe was there
the night before.
How those creatures know that this part of the Island of Great
Britain is the way to their home, or the way that they are to go;
that this very point is the nearest cut over, or even that the
nearest cut is best for them, that we must leave to the naturalists
to determine, who insist upon it that brutes cannot think.
Certain it is that the swallows neither come hither for warm
weather nor retire from cold; the thing is of quite another nature.
They, like the shoals of fish in the sea, pursue their prey; they
are a voracious creature, they feed flying; their food is found in
the air, viz., the insects, of which in our summer evenings, in
damp and moist places, the air is full. They come hither in the
summer because our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in other
countries, and for that reason feeds great quantities of insects.
If the air be hot and dry the gnats die of themselves, and even the
swallows will be found famished for want, and fall down dead out of
the air, their food being taken from them. In like manner, when
cold weather comes in the insects all die, and then of necessity
the swallows quit us, and follow their food wherever they go.
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