SOME ANCIENT AND ANTIQUATED VIEWS 11 



"As to sleep, 'tis very probable that they are in a 

 sleep or sweeven if not all the way between the 

 attraction of the earth and that of the moon, to which 

 sleep the swift acquired motion may very much con- 

 tribute. . . . Now it is likely these birds being there, 

 where they have no objects to divert them, may shut 

 their eyes, and so swing on fast asleep, till they come 

 where some change of air (as a middle region about the 

 moon or earth) may by its cold awaken them. Add to 

 this, that this sleep spares their provisions, for if (as 

 some would have it) Cuckoos and Swallows can lie 

 asleep half the year without eating, why cannot these in 

 as deep a sleep as well for two months forbear it." A 

 rdsumd of this paper, giving fuller details, appeared in 

 the Zoologist for 1909, pp. 71-73. 



Among the older writers on birds, Francis Willughby ^ 

 is to be commended for his caution. Speaking of 

 the Swallow, he remarks (p. 212): "What becomes 

 of the Swallows in winter time, whether they fly into 

 other countries, or lie torpid in hollow trees and the 

 like places, neither are natural historians agreed, nor 

 indeed can we certainly determine. To us it seems 

 more probable that they fly away into hot countries, 

 viz., Egypt, Ethiopia, etc., than that they lurk in hollow 

 trees, or holes in rocks and ancient buildings, or lie in 

 water under ice in northern countries." Willughby 

 expresses the same views when treating of the Cuckoo 



(p. 98). 



Later, the hibernation theory of Aristotle was 

 resuscitated and advocated with renewed energy. Its 

 great exponent was the Hon. Daines Barrington, 

 whose views were expounded in extenso in a com- 



^ The Ornithology of Ffancis Willughby, published in the year 1678. 



