LIFE OF WILSON. 
cxxiii 
from morning to night, that the light of heaven itself, the sky, the trees, or 
any other common objects of nature, are not better known than the swallows. 
We welcome their first appearance with delight, as the' faithful harbingers and 
companions of flowery spring, and ruddy sunmier; and when, after a long, 
frost-bound and boisterous winter, we hear it announced that the '■ SivaJluws are 
come !' what a train of charming ideas are associated with the simple tidings !" 
The following remarks on the current doctrine of the hybernation of Swal- 
lows are worthy of note. My object in introducing thcni into this place is 
twofold : to exemplify our author's talent for copious and equable conjposition ; 
and to afford myself an opportunity of adding my feeble testimony to his, on a 
subject which one should suppose would have been long ago definitively ascer- 
tained. 
" The wonderful activity displayed by these birds, forms a striking contrast 
to the slow habits of most other animals. It may be fairly questioned whether 
among the whole feathered tribes, which Heaven has formed to adorn this part 
of creation, there be any that, in the same space of time, pass over an equal 
extent of surface with the Swallow. Let a person take his stand on a fine 
summer evening, by a new-mown field, meadow or river shore, for a short time, 
and among the numerous individuals (if this tribe that flit before him, fix his 
eye on a particular one, and follow, for a while, all its circuitous labyrinths — 
its extensive sweeps — its sudden, rapidly reiterated, zigzag excursions, and 
then attempt, by the powers of mathematics, to calculate the length of the va- 
rious 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 
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 that I have made, I believe to be within the truth ; and that 
he is so engaged 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 millions one 
hundred and ninety thousand miles : upwards of eighty-seven times the cir- 
cumference of the globe ! Yet this 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 
torrid zone, is forced, when winter approaches, to descend to the bottoms of 
lakes, rivers, and mill-ponds, to bury itself in the mud with eels and snapping 
turtles; or to creep iugloriously 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 ivise men of Europe and America, who have published so 
many credihh narratives upon 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 into southern regions at the approach of winter; — (he swallow 
alone, on whom Heaven has conferred superior powers of wing, must sink into 
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 
