i8o Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



a very few Turtles and Quails may remain behind in 

 sunny spots." He then gives some particulars of the 

 migration of quails, which was well known owing to 

 their excellence as food, as it is still on the Mediter- 

 ranean coasts ; and then goes on to mention many 

 animals which hibernate instead of migrating, e.g. the 

 snakes, snails, and many insects.^ Then, returning to 

 birds, he proceeds : — " Many kinds of birds also 

 hibernate, and they do not all of them go, as some 

 imagine, to warm countries. . . . For many Swallows 

 have been seen in holes almost stripped of feathers, 

 and Kites have been known to come out of such 

 places when they have first shown themselves. The 

 Stork, Blackbird, Turtle-dove, and Lark hide them- 

 selves; and by general agreement the last most of 

 all, for not one is said to have been seen during 

 the winter." ^ 



Here, though Aristotle was wrong in supposing 

 that any birds hibernate, i.e. lie torpid in winter, 

 it is remarkable to find him telling us that there 

 were some Greeks who were right on this point ; 

 and on the whole his knowledge of the movements of 



^ S. A., viii. 12. 



'^ H. A., viii. 16. The loss of feathers by hibernating birds is 

 asserted by Aristotle more than once : cp. of the Turtle-dove in 

 this same cbapter. In Nature, vol. xlv. p. 416, Mr. A. H. 

 Macpherson drew attention to the similarity of these statements 

 and that relating to a captive Cuckoo hibernating in a kitchen, 

 described in Nature, vol. xliv. p. 223. 



