130 WONDEKS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



flying about very briskly, the weather being 

 mild. I had not seen any considerable number 

 either of swallows or martins, for a good while 

 before ; from whence, then, could these birds 

 come, if not from some hole or cavern where 

 they had laid themselves up for the winter ? 

 Surely it will not be asserted that these birds 

 migrate back again from some distant tropical 

 region, merely on the appearance of a fine day 

 or two at this late season of the year. Again 

 very early in the spring, and sometimes imme- 

 diately after very cold severe weather, on its 

 growing a little warmer, a few of these birds 

 suddenly make their appearance, long before 

 the generality of them are seen. These appear- 

 ances certainly favour the opinion of their 

 passing the winter in a torpid state, but they 

 do not absolutely prove the fact, for who ever 

 saw them reviving of their own accord from their 

 torpid state, without being first brought to the 

 fire, and as it were forced into life again ? soon 

 after which revivification they constantly die." 



Now, no one ever yet saw a swallow in a 

 state of hybernation. It may be that half- 

 starved birds, benumbed with cold, have been 

 found, ere quite dead, in some hole or place of 

 shelter, and that warmth has revived them for 

 a little time, death terminating their suffering. 

 But is this hybernation? Again, in advance 

 before the great cloud of swallows sweeping 

 over Europe from their African winter quarters, 

 on their return to their usual summer haunts, 

 a small number of stragglers, like an irregular 



