254 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



close together, they preserve themselves by mutual 

 heat *." " In certain woods of Upper Germany," 

 says the author of the Physica? Curiosa?, " upon cut- 

 ting 1 up a rotten oak tree, it has been found full of 

 swallows t." He does not quote his authority, but 

 we find the same circumstance reported by Albertus 

 Magnus, Gaspar Heldelin, Augustine Niphus, and 

 others J. 



Unfortunately for the credibility of such accounts, 

 however, they all wear the aspect of fanciful conjec- 

 ture, rather than of a fact actually observed; and 

 though we have accounts of similar circumstances 

 purporting to be from actual observation, they all 

 appear suspicious when strictly investigated. The 

 Hon. Daines Barrington, for instance, told Mr. Pen- 

 nant, on the authority of Lord Belhaven, "that num- 

 bers of swallows have been found in old dry walls 

 and in sandhills near his lordship's seat in East 

 Lothian ; not once only, but from year to year, and 

 that when they were exposed to the warmth of a fire 

 they revived. We have also," he adds, " heard of the 

 same annual discoveries near Morpeth in Northum- 

 berland, but cannot speak of them with the same 

 assurance as the two former ; neither in these two 

 instances are we certain of the particular species ." 

 " In many other places, SJ he elsewhere says, tc they 

 have been found, but I will not vouch for the truth 

 of it; as, first, in a decayed hollow tree, that was cut 

 down near Dolgelly in Merionethshire ; secondly, in 

 a cliff near Whitby in Yorkshire, where, in digging 

 out a fox, whole bushels of swallows were found in a 

 torpid condition ; thirdly, the Rev. Mr. Conway, of 

 Lychton, Flintshire, a few years ago, between All 

 Saints and Christmas, on looking down an old lead 



* Hist. vi. 20. t Mirab. Anim. ix. 46. 



Apud Aldrovandi Ornithol. ii. 17. 



Brit. Zool. 97. 



