264 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



at dusk dash down towards the water and disappear, 

 gravely asserted that they had seen them go under 

 water. And this erroneous idea seemed to them to 

 be confirmed by the discovery of the skeletons of 

 Swallows in the mud at the bottom of pools, when 

 the water had been drawn off for the purpose of 

 cleaning out the pond. These skeletons are merely 

 the remains of Swallows of too venturesome flight, 

 which, having skimmed too close to the surface, 

 have got their plumage saturated, and perished in 

 their struggles to rise again. The fact that certain 

 mammals, like the Dormouse, pass the winter in a 

 lethargfic state no doubt lent some colour to the 

 suggestion that possibly Swallows did the same ; 

 and even now the possibility of hibernation amongst 

 birds is not altogether denied. But the alleged 

 evidence on the subject is practically ignored, for 

 the reason that our present knowledge of their 

 seasonal movements precludes the necessity for any 

 such theory to account for their disappearance in 

 cold weather. 



It may be said that we now know with tolerable 

 certainty the winter haunts of all our summer 

 visitors. To take the Chimney Swallow as a 

 familiar instance. This bird, roughly speaking, 

 spends six months of the year in the British 

 Islands, that is to say, from April to October. 

 Between these two months it is found generally 

 distributed throughout Europe, going up through 

 Lapland, Norway and Sweden as far north as Ice- 

 land and Novaya Zemlia, and penetrating even into 

 Siberia and Amurland. 



