482 THE PHILOSOPHY 



< numbers of fwallows have been found in old dry walls, and 



< in fand-hills, near his Lordfhip's feat in Eaft Lothian j not 



< once only, but from year to year •, and that, when they 

 « were expofed to the warmth of a fire, they revived*'/ 

 Thefe, and other fadls of the fame kind, feem to be uncon- 

 trovertible J and Mr. Pennant infers from them, that * we 



< muft divide our belief relating to thefe two fo different opi- 



* nions, and concludej that one part of the fwallow tribe mi- 



< grates and that others have their winter-quarters near 



* home f .' But we fliould rather incline to think, with thofe 

 naturalifts who fuppofe that the torpid fwallows which are 

 occatlooally, though very rarely, difcovered in the winter 

 feafon, have been obliged to remain behind, becaufe they 

 were too young, weak, difeafed, or fuperannuated, to under- 

 take a long and fatiguing flight. Still, however, that the 

 torpidity of the feathered tribes fhould be folely confined to 

 the fwallows, is a very fmgular fadl in the hiftory of Nature. 

 Among quadrupeds, there are many fpecies who lie in a dor- 

 mant or torpid Ad.te during winter. But, if the fwallow be 

 excepted, not a flngle fpecies of birds, notwithflanding the 

 great numbers v/hich, at ftated times, appear and difappear 

 in every corner of the globe, has ever been difcovered in 

 that ftate. This circumftance alone, though we cannot yet 

 afcertain the precife places to which different fpecies of birds 

 of pafTage refort, is a mofl convincing proof of migration in 

 generah 



It has been afTerted, and even believed, by fome naturalifts, 

 that fwallows pafs the winter immcrfed under the ice, at the 

 bottom of lakes, or beneath the waters of the fea. Olaus 

 Magnus, i^chbifhop of Upfal, feems to have been the firll 

 who adopted this opinion. He inform.s us, that fwallows 

 are found in great cluflers at the bottoms of the northern 



• Pennant's Britiih Zoofogy, vol. 2. page 230. 8vo edit, 

 f Ibid. 251, 



