66 ALLEGED HIBERNATION OF BIRDS. 



caked mud, and is rarely seen between Thanksgiving and Easter, and 

 then only in the sunniest weather. 



Lastly, there are the snakes. Like other reptiles, though cold-blooded, 

 they are most common in hot regions, where no dread of snow interrupts 

 the year's business and pleasure. Of what they do with themselves in 

 winter we really have little information, beyond the general knowledge 

 that they hide away in hollow logs, underneath leaves, and in other snug 

 quarters in the woods or rocky fields, occasionally appearing on warm days 

 in a stupid condition. It appears, however, that many serpents have a 

 habit of entangling together in a horridly entwined mass of from three or 

 four to a score of individuals, and thus lying in the midst of brush-piles, 

 straw-stacks, and so forth, until they separate in the spring. This habit 

 has been observed in several American species of serpents, but, so far as I 

 know, no one has been able to explain it to the satisfaction of naturalists. 



I myself,* and others, have written so much about the expedients by 

 which the feathered people of the woods meet the inclement season, that 

 I fear the briefest sketch of this part of the subject may seem trite to you ; 

 yet if I should neglect the large and wide-awake class Aves, one might 

 justly think I had left much unsaid. 



It was an old tradition that certain birds, such as the rail and the bank- 

 swallow, hibernated, sinking into the mud in the bottom of ponds, and ly- 

 ing there in a torpor, like so many turtles. This has no proof, I think, to 

 support it, and may be set aside as false. But though for many good rea- 

 sons we may dismiss the old stories as erroneous, there is a reasonable 

 doubt in some cases whether a few birds — notably the chimney-swift— 

 may not lie dormant in clefts of the rocks, in hollow trees, or under the 

 shelter of warm buildings, as do many quadrupeds in underground re- 

 treats. The reasonableness of this has been argued, and some novel and 

 suggestive evidence towards it has lately been brought forward by Dr. 0. 

 C. Abbott.f Nevertheless it has not yet been at all proved that auy thing 

 approaching real hibernation in a cold climate has occurred, or could be 

 endured by any single bird ; and up to the present time it is better to 

 believe that our winged visitors come and go with a suddenness and 

 stealthiness so great as to make it seem almost as though they rose out 

 of the ground. 



*" Friends "Worth Knowing." New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881. Illustrated. 

 Chapter V., Our Winter Birds, pp. 106-140. 



f Science Gossip (London), January to March, 1883. 



