268 
RURAL HOURS. 
upon their former track. We watched them for more than an 
hour, while they kept up the same evolutions with much more 
regularity than usual ; perhaps they were trying their wings for 
the journey southward. 
It is amusing to look back to the discussions of naturalists 
during the last century, upon the subject of the migration of 
swallows : a number of them maintained that these active birds 
lay torpid during the cold weather in caves and hollow trees ; 
while others, still more wild in their theories, supposed that swal- 
lows went under water and passed the winter in the mud, at the 
bottom of rivers and pools ! Grave and learned were the men 
who took sides in this question, for and against the torpid the- 
ory. One might suppose that it would have required a great 
amount of the clearest evidence to support a notion so opposed 
to the general habits of those active birds ; but the facts that 
among the myriads of swallows flitting about Europe, one was oc- 
casionally found chilled and torpid, that swallows were frequently 
seen near the water, and that during the mild days of autumn a 
few stragglers appeared again, when they were supposed to re- 
vive, made up the chief part of what was urged in favor of these 
notions. It would be difficult to understand how sensible people 
could be led to maintain such opinions, were it not that men, both 
learned and unlearned, often show a sort of antipathy to simple 
truths. Thomson, in the Seasons, alludes to this strange notion ; 
speaking of the swallows, he says : 
" "Warn'd of approaching winter, gathered, play 
The swallow people ; and toss'd wide around 
O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift, 
The feather'd eddy floats ; rejoicing once 
