OnNITilOLOCY. 



83 



Catesby and Edwards made the etchings of 

 tiseir figured subjects — Wilson perlonued the 

 ;!ra»\ii)gs aiid the colourings of his — in all respccta 

 be is superior. 



I am happy to agree with this great naturalist 

 about the brumal retreat of the swallow. He 

 scouts tlie idea of tiieir retiring into the bottom of 

 rivers and lakes so generally credited by the dis- 

 ciples of Linn^us. In addition to the swallows I 

 mentioned to you before, he has described a green, 

 blue, or white-bellied swallow, under tlie name of 

 liirundo viridis. He calls the barn swallow hi- 

 rundo Americana, and seems to think that the 

 American bank swallow, or sand martin, (hirundo 

 riparia) is the same as the European. Myriads 

 of swallows, says a late traveller, are the occa- 

 sional inhabitants of Honduras. This is a key to 

 the whole mystery of tiieir winter quarters. 



The second volume of the Harleian rtliscellany 

 contains an essay written seriatim, to prove that 

 the moon is the hybernaculum of birds of pas- 

 sage. 



The following text from Jeremiah is the ground 

 work of this strange hypothesis. " The stork in 

 the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the 

 turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the 

 time of their coming." He says that '' divers of 

 U)ese fowls -A'hich make such chanjxes, and observe 



