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NATURE 



{March 29, 1877 



Port Montt {sic) pass the winter in hollow trees, and are 

 often brought into the houses cold and stiff, perfectly 

 dormant, and yet when revived by the warmth, able to 

 fly about the room. They only need a refrigerating ship 

 to be brought to, and " acclimatised " in, Ireland, or kept 

 at the Crystal Palace, This is " R. N.'s " idea, not ours, 

 but he makes it, we doubt not, in all sincerity. We now 

 fully expect that the next bird charged with "hiber- 

 nating " will be an ostrich. The phoenix, if he could be 

 found, would certainly not be safe, but then he is dormant 

 already. Even now it is perhaps not too late to injure 

 the reputation of the dodo, and announce that a Rip van 

 Winkle of the species has been "hibernating," like a 

 tenrec, in some secluded rift of the rocks in Mauritius. 



That truth will prevail in due time there can be no 

 doubt, and these tales of " hibernation" will serve to 

 amuse future generations, even as that marvellous and 

 circumstantial account of the evolution of Bemacle- 

 geese from shell-fishes now causes mirth to us — mirth 

 mingled with regret at the stupid credulity of our quasi- 

 scientific forefathers. Yet hardly so. It would be an 

 injustice to the venerable Gerard to put on a par with 

 him these story-tellers of to-day. The old herbalist had 

 but little light, but what little light he had he did not 

 neglect. Our contemporaries shut their eyes and ears to 

 that which is before them. Their wilful ignorance is 

 absolutely criminal, therefore shall they receive greater 

 condemnation. If any of them is open to conviction, let 

 him reflect on this single fact. The young cuckoo, when 

 we last see it in autumn, is clad in a plumage of reddish- 

 brown or liver-colour. When cuckoos reappear in spring, 

 they are, almost without exception, in their proverbial 

 " grey," It is obvious, then, either that the young birds 

 have moulted in the meanwhile, or else they have 

 perished in the process of "hibernation," This latter 

 alternative would soon put an end to the species, and 

 cannot for a moment be entertained. But as regards the 

 former, every physiologist will agree that while an animal 

 is torpid, all growth is suspended — yet on the " hiberna- 

 tion " theory, these young cuckoos must have put off their 

 nestling feathers, and grown those characteristic of 

 maturity, during the time when nearly all the animal 

 functions are at rest. Therefore it simply stands that 

 " hibernation " in the case of the cuckoo is an impossi- 

 bility. The same, too, with swallows. It is known that 

 they renew their feathers about Christmas, The plumage 

 of the young swallow in its first autumn does not differ so 

 strikingly from that of the adult, as it does in the cuckoo, 

 but any one pretending to ornithological knowledge, must 

 know that the swallow of the preceding year can be 

 equally declared to have changed its feathers since the 

 last autumn, and indeed the fact of this winter-moult has 

 been observed in caged birds, and recorded many years 

 since by Mr. James Pearson, whose account, verified by 

 Sir John Trevelyan, was published by Bewick eighty years 

 ago ("Land Birds," p, 249, Ed, 1797). Hence it follows 

 that neither swallows nor cuckoos — thus moulting in the 

 winter months— do, as has been asserted, "hibernate." 



It is indeed somewhat humiliating to be at this day 

 refuting an error which has been so often refuted before, 

 but necessity knows no law, and the widely- spread fallacy 

 creates the necessity. Furthermore, this protest against 

 the sciolism of the age has led us away from our parti- 



cular object, which is to notice the remarkably careful 

 and painstaking work of Herr Palmdn, originally pub- 

 lished in Swedish in 1874, and now appearing in a 

 German translation, which will have many more readers. 

 This treatise does not indeed (as will be seen from its 

 title) profess to treat of more than one branch of the mi- 

 gration question. Its scope is properly limited to a con- 

 sideration of the routes taken by birds of passage in their 

 migration ; but on that account it is none the less a valu- 

 able contribution to the already extensive literature of the 

 subject, and in this German version the author appends 

 some remarks of more general interest. He seems to 

 have availed himself of all the information, as to his main 

 point, that he could collect, and the wonder, perhaps, is 

 that, living in Finland, he has been able to amass so 

 much. His work is weak, it must be confessed, in detail 

 as to the migratory birds of our own islands, but, as 

 we think, from no fault of his own, since most of those 

 who delight to consider themselves " British Ornitholo- 

 gists " are content to stand on the ancient ways of their 

 forefathers, and to disregard everything that happens 

 beyond the " silver streak " as entirely as if it belonged 

 to another planet. Thus we doubt much if he would have 

 greatly gained by studying the various contributions to 

 "British" ornithology that have appeared since i856> 

 when the last edition of Garrell's standard work was com- 

 pleted. We must, however, hold that Herr Palmdn's 

 assignment of routes to the migratory birds of North- 

 western Europe is almost purely conjectural. We do 

 not say it is erroneous— far from that. There is much in 

 it which will very likely be proved true whenever British 

 ornithological observers shall be at the pains to observe 

 to some purpose ; but, at present, his views can, from the 

 nature of the case, be only accepted provisionally. He 

 has far different and more solid ground to go upon when 

 he treats of the migratory birds of Eastern Europe, and 

 especially of the Russian Empire — whether European 

 or Asiatic, and every ornithologist owes Herr Palmcn a 

 debt of gratitude for the compendious abstract he gives 

 from the mighty works of Pallas's successors, and notably 

 from those of Dr, von Middendorff, 



As regards the routes taken by the migratory birds ot 

 the Palasarctic region, Herr Palmdu's investigations have 

 been so concisely summed up by a recent writer in the 

 last edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " (iii, p, 768) 

 that we take the liberty of here transcribing them as 

 there given. These main routes are said to be nine in 

 number : — 



" The first (A— to use his notation), leaving the Sibe- 

 rian shores of the Polar Sea, Nova ZembFa, and the 

 North of Russia, passes down the west coast of Norway 

 to the North Sea and the British Islands, The second. 

 (B), proceeding from Spitsbergen and the adjoining 

 islands, follows much tiie same course, but is prolonged 

 past France, Spain, and Portugal to the west coast of 

 Africa, The third (C) starts from Northern Russia, and, 

 threading the White Sea, and the great Lakes of Onega 

 and Ladoga, skirts the Gulf of Finland and the southera 

 part of the Baltic to Holstein and so to Holland, where it 

 divides — one branch uniting with the second main route 

 (B), while the other, running up the valley of the Rhine j 

 and crossing to that of the Rhone, splits up on reaching ' 

 the Mediterranean, where one path passes down the west- j 

 em coast of Italy and Sicily, a second takes the line by 

 Corsica and Sardinia, and a third follows the south 

 coast of France and eastern coast of Spain — all three | 



