334 THE UNIVERSE. 



to distant markets. The deck of the ship in which I left 

 the harbour was laden with them. 



The mysterious emigration of the swallows has particu- 

 larly occupied the attention of observers. Men could not 

 make out Avliat became of these charming visitors when 

 they suddenly disappeared, and not long ago the strangest 

 suppositions were indulged in on this head. 



As these birds in autumn seek their prey in the fens, 

 and seem to plunge into them, it was for a long time be- 

 lieved that they buried themselves in the mud, only to 

 issue again with the return of the spring Avarmth, Avhich 

 re-animated them after a six months' asphyxia. Olaus 

 Magnus, a northern naturalist, more erudite than observing, 

 was the first who propagated this fable, going so far as to 

 maintain that the Norwegian fishermen often take in their 

 nets a great number of swallows along with the fish. It 

 was even asserted that if the poor birds, all soiled with 

 mud, soaked with water, and stupified Avitli cold, were 

 exposed to the heat of a stove, they were seen to become 

 speedily dry and rettirn to life. 



Linnaeus, Buflfon, and even Cuvier believed such stories ! 

 Ought we to consider this as a reproach on their parts, 

 when we see that some physiologists of our own time ob- 

 stinately maintain that certain animals can be reanimated"?^ 



As the swallows have for a long time concealed their 

 winter residence, it became the subject of all sorts of 



^ The idea that swallows winter in the mud of our marshes was so popular, 

 that a German academy thought it advisable to examine whether there was any 

 foundation for the opinion or not. This learned body accordingly proposed to 

 give their weight in silver for all the swallows brought out of the water, but the 

 prize was never claimed. The most astonishing part of the matter is to find 

 Cuvier believing in such a fable. In his Regiie Animal he says, "It appears 

 certain that swallows become torpid during winter, and even that they pass this 

 season at the bottom of the water in the marshes." — Cuvier, Regiie Animal. 

 Paris, 1829, t. i. p. 396. 



