CHAPTEE XVIIL 



DO SWALLOWS HIBERNATE? 



IN the year 1750, Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, 

 made the following entry in his journal, during a brief 

 sojourn in Southern New Jersey : " I observed the barn- 

 swallows for the first time on the 10th of April [new 

 style] ; the next day in the morning, I saw great numbers 

 of them sitting on posts and planks, and they were as wet 

 as if they had been just come out of the sea." On a sub- 

 sequent page, he remarks : " The people differed here in 

 their opinions about the abode of swallows in winter ; 

 most of the Swedes thought that they lay at the bottom 

 of the sea; some, with the English and the French in 

 Canada, thought that they migrate to the southward in 

 autumn, and return in spring. I have likewise been 

 credibly informed in Albany that they have been found 

 sleeping in deep holes and clefts of rocks during winter." 

 Furthermore, it is well to say that John Reinhold Forster, 

 the accomplished translator of Kalm's travels, adds, in a 

 foot-note, a series of well-attested instances of swallows 

 having been found hibernating in the mud at the bottoms 

 of lakes : among these instances he mentions Dr. Wal- 

 lerius, a celebrated Swedish chemist, who affirmed that he 

 had " seen more than once, swallows assembling on a reed, 

 till they were all immersed and went to the bottom ; this 

 being preceded by a dirge of a quarter of an hour's 

 length." Commenting upon the above and like instances, 



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