58 Freexiny of Animals wifhoni deslroi/inrj life. 



obtain new information in Scandinavia, as it unfortunately 

 produces too great a number of them. The same considera- 

 tion applies with still greater interest to the small number of 

 reptiles existing in Scandinavia, fresh-water fishes, and all 

 animals of the inferior classes, whether aquatic or terrestrial. 

 Lastly, most people are acquainted with the celebrated but 

 doubtful observations of Olalis Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, 

 according to which we ought here to add swallows, or at least 

 one of the species, the bank-swallow. Pretty numerous ob- 

 servations, which, according to some authors, should have con- 

 firmed those related by Olaiis, are far from being sufficient 

 proofs of so paradoxical a fact as the hybernation of swallows 

 M'ould be ; but they have created doubts in some enlightened 

 minds, and therefore we must invite the zoologists of the ex- 

 pedition to collect information on the subject in the diflPerent 

 parts of Scandinavia which they shall successively visit, and 

 hold an inquest, if we may so speak, on this question.* 



The freezing of a part of the fluid contained in animals 

 more or less completely deprived of life by severe cold, and 

 thepossibility of reviving them, as they do naturally in spring, 

 by the slow and gradual restoration of heat, are indisputable 

 facts, but still imperfectly known. Experiments undertaken 

 by one of us,t but left incomplete, demonstrate them in the 

 most positive manner, but they do not go beyond that. The 

 members of the expedition will, no doubt, find themselves very 

 favourably circumstanced to extend, and ultimately complete, 

 our knowledge of these curious facts. It will be useful that 

 they verify them, not only on animals placed by them in cir- 

 cumstances fitted to produce congelation, but, what your re- 

 porter has never had an opportunity of doing, found frozen 

 in the very circumstances under which they naturally live. 

 We especially recommend the observers who take up this sub- 

 ject, to determine exactly, in the first place, the relative po- 

 sition of the minute particles of ice found under the skin ; in 

 the second place, the state of the blood contained in the heart 

 and larger vessels ; finally, the degree of the animals insensi- 

 bility. All these observations are evidently possible under 



* See Note C. t See Note D. 



