AN INQUIRY INTO THE ALLEGED HABIT OF HIBER- 

 NATION AMONG NORTH AMERICAN SWALLOWS. 



By CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M.D. 



N the year 1750, 

 Peter Kalm, the 

 Swedish natural- 

 ist, while travel- 

 ling in America, 

 made the follow- 

 ing entry in his 

 journal, during a 

 brief sojourn in 

 Southern New 

 Jersey : " I ob- 

 served the barn 

 swallows for the 

 first time on the 

 10th of April (new 

 style) ; the next 

 day in the morn- 

 ing, I saw great 

 numbers of them 

 sitting on posts 

 and planks, and 

 they were as wet as if they had been just come out of 

 the sea." On a subsequent page, he remarks : "The 

 people differed here in their opinions about the abode 

 of swallows in winter ; most of the Swedes thought 

 that they lay at the bottom of the" sea ; some, with 

 the English and the French in Canada, thought that 

 they migrate to the southward in autumn, and return 

 in spring. I have likewise been credibly informed in 

 Albany, that they have been found sleeping in deep 

 holes and clefts of rocks, during winter." Further- 

 more, it is well to add that John Reinhold Forster, 

 the accomplished translator of Kalm's travels, adds, 

 in a foot-note, a series of well-attested instances of 

 swallows having been found hibernating in the mud 

 at the bottoms of lakes : among these instances he 

 mentions Dr. Wallerius, a celebrated Swedish chemist, 

 who affirmed that he had " seen more than once, 

 No. 217.— January 1883. 



swallows assembling on a reed, till they were all 

 immersed and went to the bottom ; this being pre- 

 ceded by a dirge of a quarter of an hour's length." 

 Commenting upon the above and like instances, Mr. 

 Forster is led to conclude that in countries as cold as 

 Sweden " swallows immerse in the sea, in lakes and 

 rivers, and remain in a torpid state, under ice, during 

 winter ; " and that some English swallows, and some 

 in Germany, " retire into clefts and holes in rocks," 

 while in Spain, Italy, and France, that they are strictly 

 migratory birds. 



That our American swallows are strictly migratory 

 birds, I have no doubt ; and it would never have 

 occurred to me to consider otherwise than as a mere 

 fancy the subject of hibernation of our swallows, had 

 not an excellent American ornithologist stated re- 

 cently the opinion that this alleged submarine hiber- 

 nation of swallows was physically and physiologically 

 feasible. This is a too hasty assertion, and has no 

 warranty from known laws of life. Such an assertion 

 having been made, however, and a semi-assent to 

 the alleged habit of hibernation thus given by an 

 authority in ornithological science ; it behoves the 

 naturalist to determine, if opportunity permits, how 

 great an amount of truth there is in the statements so 

 frequently and forcibly made, of the persons claiming 

 to have witnessed actions on the part of swallows, 

 indicative of hibernation commenced ; and of the 

 discovery of swallows in conditions indicative of 

 hibernation in progress. 



Believing this supposed habit to be really a mis- 

 conception of movements on the parts of swallows, 

 and to be likened, in a measure, to the rolling habit 

 of the mythical hoop snake, I have taken every 

 available opportunity, since 187S, to observe the 

 movements of the several species of swallows that 

 frequent my neighbourhood , with the hopes of deter- 

 mining what habits obtained among them, that might 



