514 



BIRDS. 



Ririls do urbica,) the sand Math (Minmdo riparia, ) and 

 Wg* or T' the swift or black martin [Mrwufa apu>:,) which docs 

 *"" v~~- not appear till May. In this order they arrive, one 

 after another, the chimney swallow preceding the 

 others by several days. This is the bird that has 

 given rise to so much controversy concerning its 

 winter retreat ; some naturalists, however, take m the 

 whole tribe, indefinitely, in this dispute. Olaus 

 Magnus, Etmuller, Biberg, Forster, Barrington, and 

 even Linnaeus, seem to favour the opinion of the 

 submersion, and after resuscitation of the swallow.* 

 Wc shall quote a few of the most striking, from the 

 many authorities given in support of this wild and 

 supposed process in natural history. 



" Mr Peter Brown, a Norwegian, and ingenious 

 painter, informs me, that, from the age of six to seven- 

 teen, whilst he was at school near Sheen, N. lat. 59, 

 he with his companions hath constantly found swal- 

 lows in numbers torpid under the ice, which covered 

 bogs, and that they have often revived, upon being 

 brought into a warm room." 



" Mr .Stephens, A. S. S. informs me, that when he 

 was fourteen years of age, a pond of his father's ( who 

 was vicar of Shrivenham in Berkshire) was cleaned 

 during the month of February ; that he picked up 

 himself a cluster of three or four swallows (or mar- 

 tins, ) which were caked together in the mud ; that the 

 birds were carried into the kitchen, on which they 

 .loon flew about the room in the presence of his fa- 

 ther, mother, and others, particularly the reverend 

 Dr Pye." f 



" Dr Wallerius, the celebrated Swedish chemist, 

 wrote in 1748, Sept. the 6th. O. S. to the late 

 Mr Klein, secretary to the city of Dantzick, " That 

 he has seen more than once swallows assembling 

 on a reed, till they were all immersed, and went to 

 the bottom, this being preceded by a dirge of a 

 quarter of an hour's length. \ He attests likewise, 

 that he had seen a swallow, caught during winter, 

 out of a lake, with a net, drawn as is common in 

 northern countries, under the ice ; this bird was 

 brought into a warm room, revived, fluttered about, 

 and soon after died.". 



"I can reckon myself (Forster) among the eyewit- 

 nesses of this paradoxon of natural history. In the 

 year 1735, being a little boy, I saw several swallows, 

 brought in winter, by fishermen-from the river Vistula, 

 to my father's house, where two of them were brought 

 into a warm room, revived, and flew about. I saw 

 them several times settling on the warm stove (which 

 the northern nations have in their rooms,) and I re- 

 collect well, that the same forenoon they died, and I 

 had them when dead in my hand." || 



In the same style, innumerable affidavits from North 

 America, and other parts of the world, have found 

 their way, into our newspapers, journals, and maga- 

 zines. The Statistical Account of Scotland furnishes 

 us with a specimen, 6omewhat more circumstantial, 



but of the same kind with the foregoing, and from Birds, 

 being nearer home we shall with it close our proofs Migratory. 



for this submerging system. " We have no un- ^"~"" 



common migratory birds ; and it is doubtful whether 

 all birds, usually reckoned of this class, do really 

 belong to it. The ground of this doubt well ap- 

 pears, from the following observations respecting 

 the swallow. Owing to a hint given to me by a 

 neighbour, I have been for some seasons pretty at- 

 tentive to the first appearance of this bird, but not 

 accurate enough to mark the dates, till last spring, 

 when on the 'id of May 17!tt, I saw them for the 

 first tune, pretty early in the morning, in consider- 

 able numbers on the locli (about eighteen yards from 

 the bottom of the garden,) from which they seemed 

 to be just then in the process of emerging, though, 

 as there was some rippling in the water, it was dif- 

 ficult to discern the breaking of the surface, but the 

 observer is positive, they just then arose from the 

 lake, and therefore must have lodged or lain some- 

 how at the bottom, since the time of their disappear- 

 ing last year. The weather all day continued as it 

 began in the morning, moderate with an easy breeze 

 from S. W. and the swallows sometimes in bodies, 

 sometimes in detachments, enjoyed themselves, in 

 skimming along the surface, or soaring aloft in the 

 air, or fluttering about the shores, but went very little 

 way off the water till evening, when they collected 

 over the lake, and disappeared within observation. 

 With anxious expectation, they were looked for 

 next morning, and all day through, but no appear- 

 ance of them, nor for several days following ; and 

 therefore there can be no doubt of their descending 

 into their lodgings at the bottom ; having from that 

 day's experiment, frit or judged the air not sufficient- 

 ly encouraging for them to live in. Nor were they 

 seen till the 11th of May, when they were agaia 

 observed in the process of emerging from the lake, 

 and continued playing their gambols, and fluttering 

 about the shores of it, until evening, when they dis- 

 appeared as formerly, and were seen no more till the 

 evening of the 21st of May, when the manner of 

 their disappearing was exactly the same as before 

 mentioned. The last experiment succeeded j they 

 felt, it should seem, the temperature of the air en- 

 couraging, and in a few days began to prepare then- 

 summer dwellings." 



It is an unpleasant task to express our doubts, 

 respecting the accuracy and truth of these seeming- 

 ly well attested statements ; our readers, however, 

 can give such degree of credit to them as they think 

 they may upon the whole deserve. For our part, 

 we can hold them in no other light than we do the 

 certificates obtained and annexed to the advertising 

 bills of quacks and mountebanks, enumerating the 

 various cases of persons restored to health, by their 

 never-failing medicines. We at the same time admit, 

 that natural history ought not to be studied from 



Hirundo (rustica) habitat in EuroptB domibus intra tectum, unuquc cum urbira tUmtlgitur, vcrcquc emcrgit. Syst. Nat. 

 + Barringtim"* MitctU. p. 229. 



Wc suppose this ir.nst have been what that most marvellous natural historian Pontoppidtn calls the swatfottt' snng, xAi'cJ 

 xery one knows they chant before sinking under tenter. Nat. Hist, of Norway. 

 ' I iter's note- to Kalm's Traiels, vol. ii. p. 6 8. 



junt of the I'arisb of Rescobie, Forfarshire, by the IUv. Thomas Wright. Vol. 



