34 SALMONID^. 



ists, — who now prefer the investigation of facts to the iDuilding 

 np of plausible theories, — to the greater diffusion of knowledge 

 and love of scientific inquiry among the masses, and, in no 

 slight degree, to the able and laborious system of experiments 

 which have been set on foot and carried out by country gentlemen 

 and sportsmen, to many of whom the world of letters is indebted 

 for very interesting and remarkable discoveries. 



It is but a few years, comparatively speaking, since that accu- 

 rate observer and delightful writer, Gilbert White, of Selborne, 

 the most charming rural naturalist whom England — perhaps 

 the world — has produced, thought it not unworthy of his time 

 or talents to enter into a long train of investigation and argu- 

 ment, in order to prove that the Swallow — as then appears to 

 have been largely, if not generally, believed — did not pass the 

 winter months in a torpid state, either in the hollows of decayed 

 trees and caverns, or beneath the waters of stagnant pools and 

 morasses. 



In like manner Mr. Audubon has been peculiarly minute in 

 describing the migrations of the Sora Rail, as witnessed by 

 himself, for the purpose of counteracting the notion, which I 

 myself still know to be prevalent among the vulgar and 

 ignorant where these birds abound, that they burrow in the 

 mud during the cold season, hybemating like the INIarmot or 

 the Bear, 



If, then, errors so gross were commonly in vogue concerning 

 animals, the greater portion of whose life is spent before our 

 very eyes ; which make their nests, rear their young, and come 

 and go visibly, and in such manner that their presence and 

 absence, nay, the periods of their departure and return, must 



