THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOW 



A Narration and an Enquiry. 



By Hugh Boyd Watt. 



(Read nth April, i88g.) 



None of our birds of passage is better known than the swallow 

 {Hirundo ruslica), and yet accurate knowledge of its migratory 

 movements does not seem to exist. We may now affirm that 

 it is a bird of passage, and the instances of its appearance 

 here in winter may be taken to be exceptions which only 

 prove the rule. It certainly does not remain here in a 

 state of hibernation either under water or otherwise. The 

 under-water theory died hard. Both Linnaeus and Cuvier 

 accepted it; Berger, a pupil of the former, in his Calendar 

 of Flora (published at Upsala), has under the date of 17th 

 September, 1755, the matter-of-fact entry, "swallow goes under 

 water;" Gilbert White, in a letter towards the end of last century, 

 says that though swallows " may not retire into that element, yet 

 they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers 

 during the uncomfortable months of winter." Referring to the 

 statement of Olaus Magnus, who, in his History of Northern 

 Nations (19th book), says, "in northern waters fishermen often- 

 times by chance draw up in their nets an abundance of swallows 

 hanging together like a conglomerated mass," Swan, in his 

 Speculum Mundi, expresses some incredulity as to this, but 

 qualifies his doubt by saying, " Why may it not be as well as 

 barnacle or bean geese ? of which it is certain that they grow on 

 trees." The two beliefs are certainly equally worthy of credence, 

 and may well be made to stand or fall together. I apprehend 

 that the myth developed from two facts. The swallow undoubt- 

 edly shows a partiality for water — no land bird does so in a like 



