BANK-SWALLOWS. 245 
it back again, picking up congeners for company on the 
southward journey. 
Where these and other swallows spend the winter was a 
hotly-debated question among ornithologists at the begin- 
ning of the present century ; some affirming that they, mi- 
erated with the sun, while others, believing it impossible 
that such small and delicate birds could endure the great 
fatigue and temperatures incident to such a migration, held 
that they regularly hibernated during the cold weather, 
sinking into the mud at the bottom of ponds, like frogs, or 
curling up in deep, warm crannies, like bats, and remaining 
torpid until revived by the warmth of spring. Of this lat- 
ter opinion was White, of Selborne, who alludes to it again 
and again; and Sir Thomas Forster wrote a “ Monograph of 
British Swallows,” apparently with no other object than to 
present: the arguments for and against the theory of their 
annual submersion and torpidity. One of the difficulties 
which the swhmersionists put in the way of the mgration- 
ists was the frequent accidental and isolated appearance of 
the swallow before its usual time—a fact which has occa- 
sioned a proverb in almost every language. The French 
have, “Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps ;” the Ger- 
mans, “Hine Schwalbe macht keinen Sommer ;” the Dutch, 
“ Ken zwaluw maak geen zomer ;” the Italians, “ Una rodine 
