[ 2 °3 ] 



Senegal, during the winter, begins to be an interefting fact, which 

 is communicated to the world by the perfon who obferves it. 



The annual publications of the Royal Society, as likewife the 

 periodical ones of other fcientific academies, have alfo afforded an 

 immediate and convenient opportunity of laying fuch facts before 

 the publick, which would neither have been printed, nor per- 

 petuated in detached pieces. 



To this I may add, that the common labourers, who have the 

 beft chance of finding torpid birds, have fcarcely any of them a 

 doubt with regard to this point ; and confequently, when they 

 happen to fee them in this ftate, make no mention of it to others, 

 becaufe they confider the difcovery as neither uncommon or in* 

 terefting to any one. 



Molyneux, therefore, in the Philophical Tranfactions f , in- 

 forms us, that this is the general belief of the common people of 

 Ireland with regard to land-rails 6 ; and I have myfelf received 

 the fame anfwer from a perfon who, in December, found fwal- 

 lows in the flump of an old tree h . 



Another reafon why the inftances of torpid fwallows may not 

 be expected fo frequently is, that the initinct of fecreting them- 

 felves at the proper feafon of the year likewife fuggefts to them, 



1 Phil. Tranf. abr. vol. II. p. 8 53. 



g The Rev. Dr. De-Salis (who hath been in moft parts of Ireland) in- 

 forms me that the following lines are commonly repeated in many parts of 

 that country : 



" The bat, the. bee, the butterfly, and the fwallow, 



" The corn-creak *, and the ftonechat, all fleepthe winter thorough. 



— t> 



h Vel qualis gelidis pluma labente pruinis 

 Arboris immoritur trunco brumalis hirundo." 



Claudian. 



* i. e. Our landrail. 



D d 2 



its 



