266 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



it has been found that swallows kept under water, 

 with all due precautions, die in a lew minutes *. A 

 window-swallow, which M. Montbeillard had in his 

 study, escaped from the cage and fell into a pan of 

 water, and it was only by the greatest care that he 

 succeeded in restoring it to life : a- few minutes' longer 

 immersion would probably have rendered his efforts 

 hopeless }. 



It may be added, that in Germany a reward of an 

 equal weight in silver was publicly offered to any one 

 who should produce swallows found under water ; 

 but, as Frisch informs us, nobody every claimed the 

 money J. 



A no less fanciful, but, as it appears to us, a more 

 defensible opinion, was published in a scarce tract 

 purporting- to be written by ' A Person of Learning 

 and Piety,' who maintained, with no little ingenuity, 

 that our migratory birds retire to the moon. He 

 thinks that they are about two months in passing 

 thither, and that after they are arrived above the lower 

 regions of the air into the thin aether, they will have 

 no occasion for food, as it will not be so apt to prey 

 upon the spirits as our lower air. Even on our earth, 

 he argues, bears will live upon their fat all the winter ; 

 and hence these birds, being very succulent and 

 sanguine, may have their provisions laid up in their 

 bodies for the voyage ; or perhaps they are thrown 

 into a state of somnolency by the motion arising from 

 the mutual attraction of the earth and moon. 



"Concerning the great distance," he adds, " be-* 

 tween the moon and the earth, if any shall still remain 

 unsatisfied, I leave only this to his consideration, 

 Whether there may not be some concrete bodies at 

 murh less distance than the moon, which may be the 



* Ornith. Ital. iii. 6 ; quoted by M. Montbeillard. 



t Oiseaux, xiii. 303 } edit. 12mo. 

 J Vorstellung der Viigel in Deutschland, i. 



