cxxvi LIFE OF WILSON. 



Dr. Reeve, in treating of the migration of birds, makes the following judicious 

 observations : " It is singular that this subject should still admit of doubt, when 

 it seems so easy to be decided ; yet every month we see queries and answers 

 about the migration of swallows ; and every year our curiosity is tempted to be 

 amused with marvellous histories of a party of these birds diving under water 

 in some remote quarter of America. No species of birds, except the swallow, 

 the cuckoo, and the woodcock, have been supposed to remain torpid during 

 the winter months. And what is the evidence in favor of so strange and 

 monstrous a supposition ? Nothing but the most vague testimonies, and his- 

 tories repugnant to reason and experience. 



<' Other birds are admitted to migrate, and why should swallows be exempt 

 from the general law of their nature ? When food fails in one quarter of the 

 world, their instinct prompts them to seek it in another. We know, in fact, that 

 such is their natural habit: we have the most unexceptionable proofs that 

 swallows do migrate ; they have been seen at sea on the rigging of ships ; and 

 Adanson, the celebrated naturalist, is said to have caught four European 

 swallows fifty leagues from land, between the coast of Goree and Senegal, in 

 the month of October. 



" Spallanzani saw swallows in October on the island of Lipari, and he was 

 told that when a warm southerly breeze blows in winter they are frequently 

 seen skimming along the streets in the city. He concludes that they do not 

 pass into Africa at the approach of winter, but remain in the island, and issue 

 from their retreat on warm days in quest of food."* 



The late Professor Barton of Philadelphia, in a letter to the editor of the 

 Philosophical Magazine, thus comments upon the first paragraph of the above 

 remarks of Dr. Reeve : " It appears somewhat surprising to me, that an author 



He submerged them in the wine for different periods, viz. six months, eighteen hours, six 

 hours, one hour ; and in the last instance they showed signs of life until ten minutes before 

 they were removed for the benefit of the air and sun. Of three flies used in the last expe- 

 riment, only one was reanimated, but after a few convulsive struggles it expired. 



Three flies were afterwards drowned in pure water ; and after having been kept in that 

 state for seventeen hours, they were exposed to the sun for several hours, but they gave no 

 signs of life. 



Upon a reperusal of Franklin's " Observations upon the Prevailing Doctrines of Life 

 and Death," in which the story of the flies is inserted, it appears obvious to me, that the 

 flies which "fell into the first glass that was filled," were either accidentally thrown into 

 it, or had been in it unperceived, and on this supposition a recovery from suspended 

 animation would have nothing in it which might be thought marvellous. 



* An Essay on the Torpidity of Animals, by Henry Reeve, M. D., p. 40. 



The author of this narrative, in the middle of December, 1820, was at Nice, on the 

 Mediterranean ; and had the gratification of beholding the common European Swallow 

 (Hirundo ritstica) flying through the streets in considerable numbers. M. Risso, a well- 

 known naturalist, and a resident of the place, informed him that swallows remained there 

 all winter. 



On the 20th February, 1818, being at the mouth, of the river St. John, in East Florida, 

 I observed several swallows of the species virklis of Wilson ; and, on the 26th, a flight 

 of them, consisting of several hundreds, coming from the sea. They are the first which 

 reach us in the spring from the south. They commonly arrive in Pennsylvania in the 

 early part of March. 



