SWALLOWS. 261 



We have already spoken of migration (p. 81), and 

 the little difficulty in accounting for it, rapid as these 

 birds are in motion, and fitted by their length of wing 

 for long-continued flight. Notwithstanding which, many 

 naturalists formerly, and some few still, maintain that 

 they do not desert us entirely, but become dormant 

 during the cold weather, or, what is still more extraor- 

 dinary, plunge into water, and remain buried in the mud 

 at the bottom, till the warmth of Spring revives them, 

 when they awaken from their slumbers and again become 

 tenants of the air. 



We will not positively assert that Swallows can under 

 any circumstances, continue through the Winter in a 

 dormant state, and still less,, that they can exist at the 

 bottom of water, but as instances well attested, without 

 assignable reasons for deceiving, are -abundant, coming 

 too from different and distant quarters, they at all events 

 merit some notice; and that future observers may, by 

 being made acquainted with a few of the instances given, 

 be enabled to clear up all doubts, or explain what may 

 still remain to some a mystery, we will give those cases 

 which have come to our knowledge, on the most res- 

 pectable authority. 



On the 16th of November, 1826, a gentleman residing 

 near Loch Awe, in Scotland, having occasion to examine 

 an out-house, used as a cart-shed, saw an unusual appear- 

 ance upon one of the rafters, which crossed and sup- 

 ported the thatched roof. Upon mounting a ladder, he 

 found to his astonishment, that this was a group of 

 Chimney- Swallows (Hirundo rustica), which had taken up 

 their Winter quarters in this exposed situation. The 

 group consisted of five, completely torpid; and none of 

 the tribe to which they belonged had been seen for five 

 or six weeks previously: he took them in his hand as 

 they lay closely and coldly huddledy,ogether, and con- 

 veyed them to his house, in order to exhibit them as 

 objects of curiosity to the other members of his family. 

 For some time they remained to all appearance lifeless j 



