Ixx ON THE SUPPOSED HIBEENATION OF SWALLOWS. 



was known about the migration of the birds ; consequently it was necessary to find some 

 explanation of their disappearance during the winter months. We will add, however, 

 that we shall require further evidence of the hibernation of Swallows on the next 

 occasion that a torpid specimen is produced from the mud or such-like place in winter. 

 "VVe shall want to see the moulted feathers of tlie bird in its place of retreat ; for this little 

 fact seems to have been unknown to the believers in the phenomenon, that the Swallows 

 moult during the loiiiter months. Very few birds, we fancy, could support immersion in 

 water, torpidity, and a complete moult of body-feathers, quills, and tail-feathers at the 

 same time ; and, for our own part, we do not believe in the hibernation of Swallows (we 

 say nothing about " Swifts," which are " Swallows " still to the uninstru^cted), but prefer 

 to think of them as wintering in a warmer climate than England, where insect food is 

 procurable, and where they have a chance of surviving the trying process of their moult. 

 It is, however, tolerably certain that some species of Swifts, and even Purple Martins, 

 do hibernate ; and it is biit fair to reproduce a letter which was sent by Count Salvadori 

 to ' Nature ' as late as 1889, and is published in that journal (vol. xl. p. 223) : — 

 " Prof. Carlo Spegazzini, an Italian botanist, and quite a trustworthy observer, living at 

 La Plata, the new town in the Argentine Hepublic, writes from there the following 

 account to my friend the Marquis Giacomo Doria, of Genoa: — 



" ' The bird known here by the name of Golondrina, and which I think is Progne 

 domestica, is subject to hibernation. Last year, while the zinc roof of a small house was 

 being taken up in the month of August, just in the middle of our winter, I found 

 underneath about a hundred Martins, all accumulated one over the other and lethargic, 

 but in good health, so that, exposed to the sun, they awoke and flew away very briskly. 

 This year again, having seen some holes on a barranca^ a steep bank over the Plata, I 

 began to dig at them, hoping to find some Bats ; but there I found several hundreds of 

 the Martins of the same kind as above mentioned, clustered and in a state of lethargy. 

 Is such a thing known to naturalists ? ' " 



