28 



From all the abovementioned circumstances, as 

 well as from the great length of the wings, in pro- 

 portion to the bulk of the body, of all this genus *, 

 it must appear evident that swallows are birds of 

 passage : for it is hardly to be supposed that they 

 would assemble together merely to hide themselves : 

 on the contrary, it is most probable that, were this 

 the case, each individual bird would seek a hiding 

 place for itself. 



Before I proceed to examine the evidence of 

 each side the question, I must observe one great 

 objection to the idea that the torpidity of the swal- 

 lows is the general way in which they spend the 

 winter ; namely, the length of time in which some 

 of the species are absent from their summer haunts. 

 If the swift, hirundo apus, lay asleep during the 

 whole of its absence from England, it must sleep 

 for a continuance of nearly nine months out of 

 twelve : a preponderance of torpidity over anima- 



* " If we calculate the velocity of this bird on the wing, 

 and that it can and does suspend itself in the air for fourteen 

 or fifteen hours together in search of food, it cannot fly over 

 a space of less than two or three hundred miles in that time." 

 Montagu Ornith. Diet. 



