September 



annually come and go with the regularity of the 

 equinoxes themselves. In the light of more recently 

 acquired knowledge, one can trace with sympathetic 

 interest and some amusement the doubtful steps of 

 those who every autumn asked with the perplexity of 

 the child in the song, " Oh, where and oh where are 

 my pretty swallows gone ? " 



It was natural that the annual disappearance and 

 reappearance of the swallow tribe should be fixed 

 upon as the crux in the attempt to solve the 

 question of migration generally ; for, while these 

 birds are with us, there is no other which is more in 

 evidence ; and when they depart, the gap they create 

 is too obvious to be overlooked. Their intimate 

 association with man, their habit of swarming in 

 conspicuous places just before migration, and of 

 returning in the spring in vast congregations, as 

 well as the suddenness of their arrival and departure, 

 caused these movements to be more remarked than 

 would have been the case in birds of less gregarious 

 habit. 



The retrospect is not without instruction or the 

 satisfaction to be derived from the reflection that in 

 the end wisdom is justified of her children. 



The tradition of hoary antiquity even in Dr. 

 Johnson's days that swallows hibernated under 

 water found dogmatic finality in that learned gentle- 

 man's dictum : " Swallows certainly sleep all the 

 winter. A number of them conglobulate together 

 by flying round and round, and then all in a heap 



15 



