AUTUMN, 1912 289 



page 112, says that he knew of a case in which a pair 

 of barn swallows abandoned their young in the early 

 days of November when they were almost able to take 

 care of themselves, whether in or out of the nest he 

 does not say. Nor does he state that the case came 

 directly under his own observation; if the young were 

 in the nest it may be they were dead before the 

 parent birds set out on their journey. It is possible 

 that such cases do occur from time to time and have 

 been observed, yet they may be exceptional cases. 

 We know that a few swallows do linger on with us 

 into the depth of winter each year; that they become 

 torpid with cold, and that occasionally one does 

 survive until the following spring. These rare in- 

 stances gave rise to the belief that swallows hibernate 

 regularly, which was held by serious naturalists down 

 to the early nineteenth century: but we now know 

 that these cases of torpid birds are rare exceptions 

 to the rule that the swallow migrates each autumn 

 to Africa. 



While I was keeping watch on the martins when 

 the fate of the young was still hanging in the balance, 

 there was a good deal of talk on the case among my 

 old fishermen and wild-fowling friends, and about 

 swallows generally. One man told me that last winter 

 (191 1) he was at the neighbouring village of Warham, 

 one bright sunny day about the middle of December, 

 and saw five or six swallows at a pond there flying 

 about in a slow feeble manner over the water. They 

 perched frequently on a small bramble bush growing 

 by the pond and were so tame or stupefied by the 



