260 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



a short time only, but their feet soon after became 

 swelled and inflamed, which Mr. Pearson attributed 

 to their perching, and they died about Christmas ; 

 thus the first year's experiment was in some measure 

 lost. Not discouraged by the failure of this, Mr. 

 Pearson determined to make a second trial the suc- 

 ceeding- year, from a strong desire of being con- 

 vinced of the truth respecting theirgoing into a state of 

 torpidity. Accordingly, the next season, having taken 

 some birds, he put them into the cage, and in every 

 respect pursued the same method as with the last ; 

 but to guard their feet from the bad effects of the 

 damp and cold, he covered the perches with .flannel, 

 and had the pleasure to observe that the birds throve 

 extremely well ; they sung their song through the 

 winter, and soon after Christmas began to moult, 

 which they got through without any difficulty, and 

 lived three or four years, regularly moulting every 

 year at the usual time. On the renewal of their 

 feathers, it appeared that their tails were forked 

 exactly the same as in those birds which return hither 

 in the spring, and in every respect their appearance 

 was the same*. 57 



The story of bank-swallows having been drawn 

 from their holes on the Rhine, it may be observed, 

 is dated in April, which is about the usual time of 

 the appearance of those birds, and is no more ex- 

 traordinary than it would be to find a sparrow under 

 a house-eave, or a torn-tit in the hole of a tree. Did 

 the bank-swallows really remain torpid in those holes 

 during the winter, nothing would be easier than to 

 find them there, a circumstance which we believe 

 has never been recorded even in the annals of credu- 

 lity. In a numerous colony of this species, esta- 

 blished in the bank of a stone-quarry at Catrine, in. 

 Ayrshire, we have in numerous instances witnessed 

 * British Birds, i. 328. 



