264 SWALLOWS: THEIR HIBERNATION. 



A gentleman of science informed Mr. Barrington that 

 when he was fourteen years of age, a pond belonging to 

 his father, who was a vicar in Berkshire, was cleared out 

 in February. While the workmen were clearing it, he 

 picked up a cluster of three or four swallows that were 

 caked in the mud, and they revived and flew about when 

 carried to a warm room. Mr. Barrington records many 

 similar facts, for which I have no space. In one instance 

 swallows were taken out of a mass of solid ice, and were 

 brought to life by the application of heat. 



He thinks swallows only are ever submerged in \vater 

 or mud, but that martins retire to fissures in rocks or to 

 some lurking-places in the ground. He mentions a boat- 

 man who had seen thousands of martins in the crevices 

 of a rock, and that they would revive when taken into a 

 warm room. Kalm also relates, in his " Travels in Amer- 

 ica," that they have been found torpid in holes and clefts 

 of rocks near Albany, New York. Mr. McKenzie, being 

 at Lord Stafford's in Yorkshire, near the end of October, 

 a conversation began about swallows crossing the seas. 

 This the game-keeper disbelieved, and said he would 

 carry any one to some neighboring coal-works, where he 

 was sure of finding them at that time. Some of the 

 servants attended him to the coal-pits, where several 

 martins were found in a torpid state, but would show 

 life when warmed. 



Mr. Barrington concludes from all these facts that 

 martins appear occasionally throughout the winter, when 

 the weather is mild ; but he had heard no well-attested 

 cases of the reappearance of sand-martins during the 

 winter ; he cannot conjecture where they conceal them- 

 selves, but he is positive they do not winter in their 

 holes. He expresses his belief in the impossibility of 

 their making a journey across the seas to Africa, and 

 doubts the few recorded instances of their alighting on 



