300 BIRDS AND MAN 



that we may come to believe in a thing and 

 belief itself there is practically no difference. 

 I began to speculate as to the subjects about 

 to be discussed by us. The chief one would 

 doubtless relate to the bird life of the district. 

 There are fresh things to be related of the 

 cuckoo ; how " wonder has been added to 

 wonder" by observers of that bird since the 

 end of the eighteenth century. And here is 

 a delicate subject to foUow — to wit, the hiber- 

 nation of swallows — yet one by no possibility 

 to be avoided. It would be something of a 

 disappointment to him to hear it stated, as an 

 estabhshed fact, that none of our hirundines do 

 winter, fast asleep like dormice, in these islands. 

 But there would be comfort in the succeeding 

 declaration that the old controversy is not quite 

 dead yet — ^that at least two popular writers on 

 British birds have boldly expressed the belief 

 that some of our supposed migrants do actually 

 " lay up " in the dead season. The deep interest 

 manifested in the subject would be a temptation 

 to dwell on it. I should touch on the discovery 

 made recently by a young English naturalist 

 abroad, that a small species of swallow in a 



