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. 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.
In these parts are also several good market towns, some in this
county and some in the other, as Beccles, Bungay, Harlston, etc.,
all on the edge of the River Waveney, which parts here the counties
of Suffolk and Norfolk. And here in a bye-place, and out of common
remark, lies the ancient town of Hoxon, famous for being the place
where St. Edmund was martyred, for whom so many cells and shrines
have been set up and monasteries built, and in honour of whom the
famous monastery of St. Edmundsbury, above mentioned, was founded,
which most people erroneously think was the place where the said
murder was committed.
Besides the towns mentioned above, there are Halesworth,
Saxmundham, Debenham, Aye, or Eye, all standing in this eastern
side of Suffolk, in which, as I have said, the whole country is
employed in dairies or in feeding of cattle.
This part of England is also remarkable for being the first where
the feeding and fattening of cattle, both sheep as well as black
cattle, with turnips, was first practised in England, which is made
a very great part of the improvement of their lands to this day,
and from whence the practice is spread over most of the east and
south parts of England to the great enriching of the farmers and
increase of fat cattle. And though some have objected against the
goodness of the flesh thus fed with turnips, and have fancied it