BARN SWALLOW. 



35 



of the various lines it describes. Alas ! even his omnipotent fluxions 

 would avail him little here, and he would soon abandon the task in 

 despair. Yet, that some definite conception may be formed of this 

 extent, let us suppose, that this little bird flies, in his usual way, at 

 the rate of one mile in a minute, which, from the many experiments 

 I have made, I believe to be within the truth ; and that he is so en- 

 gaged for ten hours every day ; and further, that this active life is 

 extended to ten years (many of our small birds being known to live 

 much longer even in a state of domestication), the amount of all 

 these, allowing three hundred and sixty-five days to a year, would 

 give us two million one hundred and ninety thousand miles; up- 

 wards of eighty-seven times the circumference of the globe! Yet 

 this little winged seraph, if I may so speak, who, in a few days, and 

 at will, can pass from the borders of the arctic regions to the tor- 

 rid zone, is forced when winter approaches to descend to the bot- 

 toms of lakes, rivers, and mill ponds to bury itself in the mud with 

 eels and snapping turtles; or to creep ingloriously into a cavern, 

 a rat hole, or a hollow tree, there to doze with snakes, toads, and 

 other reptiles until the return of spring! Is not this true ye wise 

 men of Europe and America, who have published so many credible 

 narratives on this subject? The Geese, the Ducks, the Catbird, and 

 even the Wren which creeps about our outhouses in summer like 

 a mouse, are all acknowledged to be migratory, and to pass to 

 southern regions at the approach of winter;— the Swallow alone, 

 on whom heaven has conferred superior powers of wing, must sink 

 in torpidity at the bottom of our rivers, or doze all winter in the 

 caverns of the earth. I am myself something of a traveller, and 

 foreign countries afford many novel sights : should I assert, that in 

 some of my peregrinations I had met with a nation of Indians, all 

 of whom, old and young, at the commencement of cold weather, 

 descend to the bottom of their lakes and rivers, and there remain 

 until the breaking up of frost; nay, should I affirm, that thousands 

 of people in the neighbourhood of this city, regularly undergo the 



