New Jerfey, Raccoon. 141 



build their nefts in houfes, and under the 

 roofs ,on the outfide ; I likewife found their 



nefts 



they go to warmer climates when they difappear in the 

 Northern countries : others fay, they creep into hollow 

 trees, and holes in clefts of rocks, and ly there all the win- 

 ter in a torpid ftate : and others affirm, that they take their 

 retreat into water, and revive again in fpring. The two 

 firft opinions have been proved, and it feems have found 

 credit ; the laft has been treated as ridiculous, and almoft 

 as an old woman's tale. Natural hiftory, as all the other 

 hiftories, depends not always upon the intrinfic degree of 

 probability, but upon fails founded on the teftimony 



of people of noted veracity. Swallows are feldom 



ieen finking down into the water, Swallows have not 

 fuch organs as frogs or lizards, which are torpid 

 during winter, ergo, $fwalki#s live not, and cannot live, 

 under water. This way of arguing, I believe, would 

 carry us, in a great many cafes, too far ; for tho' it is not 

 clear to every one, it may however be true : and lizards 

 and frogs are animals of a clafs widely different from that 

 of birds, and muft therefore of courfe have a different 

 ftrufture ; hence it is they are clafled feparately. Ths 

 bear and the marmot are in winter in a torpid ftate, and 

 have however not fuch organs as lizards and frogs ; and 

 no body doubts of their being, during fome time, in the 

 mod rigid climates in a torpid ftate : for the Alpine Na- 

 t'ons hunt the marmots frequently, by digging their holes 

 up, and find them fo torpid, that they cut their throats, 

 without their reviving or giving the leaft fign of life during 

 the operation ; but when the torpid marmot is brought into 

 a warm room and placed before the fire, it revives from its 

 lethargy. The queftion muft therefore b'e decided by fads; 

 nor are they wanting here : Dr. Wallenm, the celebrated 

 Swedijb Chemift, wrote in 1748, September the 6th O. S. 

 to the late Mr. Kletn, Secretary of the City of Dantxick*. 

 *' That he has feen more than once Swallows aflembling on 

 a reed, till they were all immerfed and went to the bot- 

 tom ; this being preceded by adirge.ofa quarter of an 

 hour's length. He attefts likewife, that he had feen a 

 caught during winter out of a lake with a net, 



draws, 



