HIBERNATION 



fat is absorbed aud aids in keeping up the strength of the 

 bird during the cold and starving period. Numerous 

 instances of migratory birds remaining in Great Britain are 

 met with, and many are easily accounted for, — ^wounded 

 wings or injured feathers are quite sufficient to detain 

 them ; and the dying down and withering of the vegetation, 

 thereby affording Httle shelter, render landrails more 

 likely to be discovered, although they creep into almost 

 any place for concealment. That some birds can exist for 

 six or seven days without food or water is a fact of which 

 the writer can furnish undoubted proof; but a really 

 hibernating bird has at present an existence only in the 

 imagination, and would be as difficult to find as Queen 

 Anne's ghost. 



When once a belief is well and widely established, it 

 appears to me to be quite useless, however frequently it 

 may be contradicted and the truth of the story denied, to 

 try to make converts to a contrary opimon. It is like 

 weeds in a garden, which crop up again and again onlj- 

 to be destroyed for a time. To get entirely rid of them 

 seems impossible. A case in point is the old story of the 

 hibernation of the swallow, which lingers still in many 

 parts of this country. Only as late as April 2, 1881, there 

 appeared in Land and Water a letter upon this subject. 

 I wrote the following in reply : — 



THE SirPPOSED HIBERNATION OF SWALLOWS. 



It appears to me to be most extraordinary that any 

 persons having only a trifling knowledge of birds and 

 their habits should at the present day entertain for one 

 moment the slightest doubt upon this subject, and that 

 they, in order to give a little strength to this doubt, 

 should refer to the ancient but long-exploded statements 



225 Q 



