HYBEKNATION. 113 



not truly hybernating. However, from a few 

 isolated cases like these, many have insisted on 

 the hybernation of such species, overlooking the 

 fact, that some accident had prevented their mi- 

 gration at the ordinary time, and that cold and 

 famine were bringing them to their end, their 

 timely discovery being a mere matter of acci- 

 dent, and but for which their death must have 

 speedily occurred. Now, may not a few wretched 

 Humming-birds, prevented from migrating by 

 some fatality, benumbed perhaps by an unex- 

 ampled and sudden depression of atmospheric 

 temperature, have been occasionally found cling- 

 ing to the sprig of some bush or tree, as a place 

 of refuge, and given rise to an exaggerated story, 

 greedily received, modified, and added to ; the 

 marvellous being, as we know, exceedingly pa- 

 lateable, and credited upon very slender testi- 

 mony by persons not conversant with the laws 

 of organic life? "Witness the stories of live 

 toads having been found inclosed in the centre 

 of a solid block of marble or compact stone, and 

 which have raised vague wonder in the minds of 

 persons even of education in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, who have firmly believed in them. 



It is thus that we attempt to account for the 

 marvellous accounts given by Gromara, Ximenes, 

 and others, relative to the strange hybernation 

 of the Humming-birds. 



We are not aware that the average degree of 

 the animal heat of these birds has ever been 



I 



