232 Rev. C. Smith on the Hybernation 



On the 16th November 1826, a gentleman residing near the 

 banks of Lochawe in Argyleshire, having occasion to examine 

 a shade which served for a cart-house, and which seemed in a 

 tottering condition, saw an unusual appearance upon one of the 

 rafters, which crossed and supported the thatched roof. Upon 

 procuring a ladder, he found, to his astonishment, that this was 

 a group of chimney swallows (the Hirundo rusticaj, which had 

 taken their winter quarters in this exposed situation. The 

 group consisted of five, completely torpid ; and none of the tribe 

 to which they belonged had been seen for six weeks previously. 

 With a thoughtlessness which he, in common with every lover 

 of science must regret, he took them in his hand as they lay 

 closely and coldly together, and conveyed them to his house, 

 in order to exhibit them as objects of curiosity to the other 

 members of the family. 



For some time they remained, to all appearance, lifeless ; but 

 the temperature of the apartment into which they were carried, 

 being considerably raised by a good turf fire, they gradually 

 betrayed symptoms of resuscitation, and, in less than a quarter 

 of an hour, feehng that they were rather rudely handled, all of 

 them recovered so far as to fly impatiently around the room, 

 in search of some opening by which they might escape. The 

 window was thrown up, and they soon found their way into the 

 fields, and were never seen again. 



Now, in this circumstance, which I am able to prove to the 

 satisfaction of any individual, there is nothing contradictory to 

 the supposed migration of the Hirundo rustica to Senegal, but 

 there is enough to account for the popular notions regarding his 

 domicile amongst us during the winter. For is it not possible 

 that those birds, which are the produce of a second, or even of 

 a late incubation, may often find themselves too weak to take 

 those bold flights which the parent birds, as well as the produce 

 of first amours in the earlier part of the season, perform, or may 

 perform, with safety ? And that He who is no less bountiful in 

 the preservation than in the production of life, has made a pro- 

 vision for the existence of these birds, during the winter, such 

 as he is known to have made for other animals, that have not 

 the power of migration, nor a nature fitted for retaining all its 

 vital functions, in every modification of circumstance. And it 



