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- 

 grated 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 th'e 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 arid against the theory of their 

 annual submersion and torpidity. One of the difficulties 

 w^hich the submersionists put in the way of the migration- 

 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, "Eine Schwalbe macht fain-en Sommer ;" the Dutch, 

 " Een zwaluw maak geen zomer ;" the Italians, " Una rodine 



