C xc LIFE OF WILSON. 



natural habit: we have the most unexceptionable proofs that 

 swallows do migrate; they have been seen at sea on the rigging 

 of ships; and Adanson, the celebrated naturalist, is said to have 

 caught four European swallows fifty leagues from land, be- 

 tween the coast of Goree and Senegal, in the month of October. 



" Spallanzani saw swallows in October on the island of Li- 

 pari, and he was told that when a warm southerly breeze blows 

 in winter they are frequently seen skimming along the streets 

 in the city. He concludes that they do not pass into Africa at 

 the approach of winter, but remain in the island, and issue 

 from their retreat on warm days in quest of food."* 



The late professor Barton of Philadelphia, in a letter to the 

 editor of the Philosophical Magazine, thus comments upon the 

 first paragraph of the above remarks of Dr. Reeve: " It ap- 

 pears somewhat surprising to me, that an author who had so 

 long had the subject of the torpidity of animals under his con- 

 sideration, should have hazarded the assertion contained in the 

 preceding paragraph. Dr. Reeve has certainly read of other 

 birds besides the swallow, the cuckoo, and the woodcock, 

 which are said to have been found in a torpid state. And ought 

 he not to have mentioned these birds? 



66 In my i Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylva- 

 nia,' I have mentioned the common humming-bird ( Trochilus 

 colubris) as one of those American birds which do occasionally 

 become torpid. 



" In regard to the swallows, I shall say but little at present. 



* An Essay on the Torpidity of Animals, by Henry Reeve, M. D. p. 40. 



The author of this narrative, in the middle of December, 1820, was at 

 Nice, on the Mediterranean; and had the gratification of beholding the com- 

 mon European Swallow (Hirundo rustica) flying 1 through the streets in con- 

 siderable numbers. M. Risso, a well-known naturalist, and a resident of the 

 place, informed him that swallows remained there all winter. 



On the 20th February, 1818, being at the mouth of the river St. John, in 

 East Florida, I observed several swallows of the species viridis of Wilson; and, 

 on the 26th, a flight of them, consisting of several hundreds, coming from the 

 sea. They are the first which reach us in the spring from the south. They 

 commonly arrive in Pennsylvania in the early part of March. 



