Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722Defoe, Daniel
History
Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722
Defoe, Daniel
England -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
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.
This they do in the manner I have mentioned above, for sometimes they are
seen to go off in vast flights like a cloud. And sometimes again, when
the wind grows fair, they go away a few and a few as they come, not
staying at all upon the coast.
_Note_.—This passing and re-passing of the swallows is observed nowhere
so much, that I have heard of, or in but few other places, except on this
eastern coast, namely, from above Harwich to the east point of Norfolk,
called Winterton Ness, North, which is all right against Holland. We
know nothing of them any farther north, the passage of the sea being, as
I suppose, too broad from Flamborough Head and the shore of Holderness in
Yorkshire, etc.
I find very little remarkable on this side of Suffolk, but what is on the
sea-shore as above. The inland country is that which they properly call
High Suffolk, and is full of rich feeding grounds and large farms, mostly
employed in dairies for making the Suffolk butter and cheese, of which I
have spoken already. Among these rich grounds stand some market towns,
though not of very considerable note; such as Framlingham, where was once
a royal castle, to which Queen Mary retired when the Northumberland
faction, in behalf of the Lady Jane, endeavoured to supplant her. And it
was this part of Suffolk where the Gospellers, as they were then called,
preferred their loyalty to their religion, and complimented the Popish
line at expense of their share of the Reformation. But they paid dear
for it, and their successors have learned better politics since.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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