[ I" ] 



lowing hiftory of their manner of retiring, 

 which he received from fome countrymen and 

 others. They aflerted, that fometimes the 

 Swallows afiembled in numbers on a reed, 

 till it broke and funk with them to the bot- 

 tom ; and their immerfion was preluded by a 

 dirge of a quarter of an hour in length : that 

 others would unite in laying hold of a llraw with 

 their bills, and fo plunge down in fociety : others 

 again would form a large mafs, by clinging 

 together with their feet, and fo commit them 

 felves to the deep. 



" Such are the relations given by thofe that are 

 fond of this opinion -, and, though delivered with- 

 out exaggeration, muft provoke a fmile. They 

 aflign not the fmalleft reafon to account for thefe 

 birds being able to endure fo long a fubmerfion 

 without being fufFocated, or without decaying, in 

 an element fo unnatural to fo delicate a bird 5 

 when we know that the Otter % the Cormorant, 



and 



• Though entirely fatisfied in our own mind of the impoiîî- 

 bility of thefe relations ; yet, deflrous of ftrengthening our 

 i^pinion with feme better authority, we applied to that able 



anatomift^ 



