HABITS AND MIGHATIOW. Ill 



life and death. G-omara states, that they ex- 

 pired in the month of October, haying previously 

 suspended themselves by a branch in some warm 

 place, and were renascent in April. Instances 

 were cited where they had been kept affixed to 

 some stick within doors, and after lying lifeless 

 for six months had become reanimated, and 

 being given their liberty had flown forth into 

 the fields. This is related as worthy of all credit 

 in the edition of Hernandez (Romae, 1651, 

 p. 322, folio). John de Laet quotes Ximenez 

 for the story of their remaining affixed by their 

 bills, and there remaining immoveable like dead 

 birds for six months, till the rains returning 

 Flora again decked the fields. (Novus Orbis, 

 fol. Lugd. Batav. Ed. Elzever. 1633, page 

 256)." 



Any comment on this tissue of fable and cre- 

 dulity is as useless as would be, in the present 

 day, any serious attempt to refute the once en- 

 tertained theory of the subaquatic hybernation 

 of swallows. Erroneous opinions often arise 

 from circumstances, which give them something 

 like a colouring of truth ; as the acrid humour 

 exuding from the cutaneous glands of the Toad, 

 has led to the belief of its being a poisonous 

 reptile ; or the attendance of the insect-eating 

 Groatsucker on cattle to the supposition that the 

 bird drained their udders. Tt strikes us that 

 the following observations by Wilson, which 

 have attracted little notice, bears upon the story 



