BARN SWALLOW. 413 



lines it describes. Alas ! even his omnipotent fluxions would 

 avail him little here, and he would soon abandon the task in 

 despair. Yet, that some definite conception may be formed of 

 this extent, let us suppose, that this little bird flies, in his usual 

 way, at the rate of one mile in a minute, which, from the many 

 experiments I have made, I believe to be within the truth; and 

 that he is so engaged for ten hours every day; and further, that 

 this active life is extended to ten years (many of our small birds 

 being known to live much longer even in a state of domestica- 

 tion), the amount of all these, allowing three hundred and sixty- 

 five days to a year, would give us two millions one hundred and 

 ninety thousand miles; upwards of eighty-seven times the cir- 

 cumference of the globe ! Yet this little winged seraph, if I 

 may so speak, who, in a few days, and at will, can pass from 

 the borders of the arctic regions to the torrid zone, is forced, 

 when winter approaches, to descend to the bottoms of lakes, ri- 

 vers, and mill ponds to bury itself in the mud with eels and 

 snapping turtles; or to creep ingloriously into a cavern, a rat 

 hole, or a hollow tree, there to doze with snakes, toads, and 

 other reptiles until the return of spring! Is not this true, ye wise 

 men of Europe and America, who have published so many 

 credible narratives on this subject? The Geese, the Ducks, the 

 Catbird, and even the Wren, which creeps about our outhouses 

 in summer like a mouse, are all acknowledged to be migratory, 

 and to pass to southern regions at the approach of winter; the 

 Swallow alone, on whom heaven has conferred superior powers 

 of wing, must sink in torpidity at the bottom of our rivers, or 

 doze all winter in the caverns of the earth. I am myself some- 

 thing of a traveller, and foreign countries afford many novel 

 sights: should I assert, that in some of my peregrinations I had 

 met with a nation of Indians, all of whom, old and young, at 

 the commencement of cold weather, descend to the bottom of 

 their lakes and rivers, and there remain until the breaking up 

 of frost; nay, should I affirm, that thousands of people in the 

 neighbourhood of this city, regularly undergo the same semi- 

 annual submersion that I myself had fished up a whole family 



