CXXVl 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
Dr. Eeeve, in treating of the migration of birds, makes tlie following judicious 
observations : " It is singular that this subject should still admit of doubt, when 
it seems so easy to be decided; yet every month we see queries and answers 
about the migration of swallows ; and every year our curiosity is tempted to be 
amused with marvellous histories of a party of these birds diving under water 
in some remote quarter of America. No species of birds, except the swallow, 
the cuckoo, and the woiidcock, have been supposed to remain torpid during 
the winter months. And what is the evidence in favor of so strange and 
monstrous a supposition ? Nothing but the most vague testimonies, and his- 
tories repugnant to reason and experience. 
" Other birds are admitted to migrate, and why should swallows be exempt 
from tlie general law of their nature? AVhen food fails in one quarter of the 
world, their instinct prompts them to seek it in another. We know, in fact, that 
such is their natural habit : we have the most unexceptionable proofs that 
swallows do migrate ; they have been seen at sea on the rigging of ships; and 
Adanson, the celebrated naturalist, is said to have caught four European 
swallows fifty leagues from land, between the coast of Goree and Senegal, in 
the month of October. 
'• Spallaiiz-mi saw swallows in October on the island of Lipari, and he was 
told that when a warm southerly breeze blows in winter they are frequently 
seen skimming along the streets in tlie city. He concludes that, they do not 
pass into Africa at the approach of winter, but remain in the island, and issue 
from their retreat on warm days in f|uest of food."* 
The late Professor Barton of Pliiladelpliia, in a letter to the editor of the 
Philosophical 3I:igazine, thus comments upon the first paragraph of the above 
remarks of Dr. Reeve : " It appears somewhat surprising to me, that an author 
He submergeil tlieni in the wine for difFereiit periods, viz. si.x montlis, eighteen hours, six 
hours, one lionr ; nnd in tlie last instance they showed signs of life until ten minutes before 
they were removed for tlie henetit of the air and sun. Of three flies used in the last expe- 
riment, only one was reanimated, l)ut after a few eonvulsivo struggles it expired. 
Three flics were afterwards drowned in pure water ; and after having been kept in that 
state for seventeen hours, they were exposed to the sun fur .several hours, but they gave no 
signs of life. 
Upon a reperusrti of Franklin's " Observations upon the Prevailing Doctrines of Life 
and Death," in w hich the story of the flies is inserted, it appears obvious to me, that the 
flies which fell into the first glass that was filled," were either accidentally thrown into 
it, or had been in it unperccived. and on this supposition a recovery from suspended 
animation wuuld have nothing in it whicb might be thought marvellous. 
* An Essay on the Torpidity of Animals, by Henry Reeve, M. D., p. 40. 
The author of this narrative, in the middle of December, 1820, was at Nice, on the 
Mediterranean ; and had the gratiiicatiun ui' bchulding the coniinon European .Swallow 
{Hirumlo rusiica) flying through the streets in considerable numbers. .AI. Risso, a well- 
known naturalist, and a resident of the place, informed him that swallows remained there 
all winter. 
On the 20th Feliruary, 1818, being at the mouth of the river St. John, in East Florida, 
I observed several swallows of the species viridis of Wilson ; and, on the 26th, a flight 
of them, consisting of several hundreds, coming from the sea. They are the first which 
reach us in the spiing from the south. They commonly arrive in Pennsylvania in the 
early part of March. 
