I2O NATURAL HISTORY. 



cannot experience ; and so dispose, or we may say, 

 necessitate, this tribe of birds, or part of them at least, 

 to a repose more lasting than that of any others. 



'The third notion is, even at first sight, too amazing 

 and unnatural to merit mention, if it was not that some 

 of the learned have been credulous enough to deliver, 

 for fact, what has the strongest appearance of impossi- 

 bility; we mean the relation of swallows passing the 

 winter immersed under ice, at the bottom of lakes, or 

 lodged beneath the water of the sea at the foot of rocks. 

 The first who broached this opinion, was Olaus Magnus, 

 Archbishop of Upsal, who very gravely informs us, that 

 these birds are often found in clustered masses at the 

 bottom of the northern lakes, mouth to mouth, wing to 

 wing, foot to foot ; and that they creep down the reeds in 

 autumn to their subaqueous retreats. That when the 

 old fishermen discover such a mass, they throw it into the 

 water again ; but when young inexperienced ones take it, 

 they will, by thawing the birds at a fire, bring them indeed 

 to the use of their wings, which will continue but a very 

 short time, being owing to a premature and forced 

 revival. 



'That the good archbishop did not want credulity, in 

 other instances, appears from this, that after having 

 stocked the bottom of the lakes with birds, he stores 

 the clouds with mice, which sometimes fall in plentiful 

 showers on Norway arid the neighbouring countries. 



' Some of our own countrymen have given credit to the 

 submersion of swallows ; and Klem patronises the doctrine 

 strongly, giving the following history of their manner of 

 retiring, which he received from some countrymen and 



