





414 BARN SWALLOW, 



of these from the bottom of Schuylkill, where they had lain 

 torpid all winter, carried them home, and brought them all 

 comfortably to themselves again. Should I even publish this in 

 the learned pages of the Transactions of our Philosophical So- 

 ciety, who would believe me? Is then the organization of a 

 Swallow less delicate than that of a man? Can a bird, whose vital 

 functions are destroyed by a short privation of pure air and its 

 usual food, sustain, for six months, a situation where the most 

 robust man would perish in a few hours or minutes? Away with 

 such absurdities! They are unworthy of a serious refutation. 

 I should be pleased to meet with a man who has been person- 

 ally more conversant with birds than myself, who has followed 

 them in their wide and devious routes studied their various 

 manners mingled with and marked their peculiarities more 

 than I have done; yet the miracle of a resuscitated swallow, in 

 the depth of winter, from the bottom of a mill pond, is, I con- 

 fess, a phenomenon in ornithology that I have never met with. 

 What better evidence have we that these fleet-winged tribes, 

 instead of following the natural and acknowledged migrations 

 of many other birds, lie torpid all winter in hollow trees, caves 

 and other subterraneous recesses? That the Chimney Swallow, 

 in the early part of summer, may have been found in a hollow 

 tree, and in great numbers too, is not denied; such being in 

 some places of the country (as will be shown in the history of 

 that species), their actual places of rendezvous, on their first ar- 

 rival, and their common roosting place long after; or that the 

 Bank Swallows, also, soon after their arrival, in the early part 

 of spring, may be chilled by the cold mornings which we fre- 

 quently experience at that season, and be found in this state in 

 their holes, I would as little dispute; but that either the one or 

 the other has ever been found, in the midst of winter in a state 

 of torpidity, I do not, cannot believe. Millions of trees of all 

 dimensions are cut down every fall and winter of this country, 

 where, in their proper season, Swallows swarm around us. Is 

 it therefore in the least probable that we should, only once or 

 twice in an age, have no other evidence than one or two soli- 



