12 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 



name was worth for him to so much as whisper 

 hibernation, torpidity, and mud! In 1877, how- 

 ever, with the pubhcation of Palmen's Ueher die 

 Zngstrassen der Fogel, the subject was again 

 brought into prominence before British ornitho- 

 logists by an anonymous reviewer of the work in 

 Nature, and once more the theory was subjected 

 by him to the bitterest ridicule, and denounced as 

 follv. Three weeks afterwards, in the same public- 

 ation {Nature), the Duke of Argyll transmits a 

 letter from Sir John McNeill, wherein the latter 

 gentleman explicitly states that he has seen Swallows 

 hibernating in large numbers. I am indebted to 

 the Duke of Argyll for the following interesting 

 details. " I have an anecdote to refer to on the 

 authority of my late brother-in-law. Sir John 

 McNeill, who told me that many years ago when 

 travelling in the East, he had occasion to cross 

 the Tigris or Euphrates, I forget which, and that 

 he saw a large slice of the muddy bank which had 

 been undermined by the current fall away — ex- 

 posing to view manv Swallows which were dormant 

 in holes in the mud, and of which he picked up a 

 number with his own hands. That Swallows do 

 generally migrate when they leave us is an ascer- 

 tained fact. That they can live in a dormant con- 

 dition, or do ever hibernate, is not believed by 

 naturalists, and I doubt if any evidence but their 

 own eyesight would convince them. Sir John 

 McNeill also told me that he once saw a Hoopoe 

 fly into the hole of a tree at Teheran, in Persia, 



