SWALLOWS. 
269 
Ert to their wintry slumbers they retire; 
In clusters clung, beneath the mould’ring bank, 
And where, unpierc'd by frost, the cavern sweats. 
Or rather into warmer climes convey’d 
With other kindred birds of season, 
There they twitter cheerful.” 
He seems rather to have inclined himself to the better opinion.* 
In ancient times the swallows were very naturally included 
among other migratory bh'ds ; there is said to be an old Greek 
ode in which the retm’n of the swallow is mentioned. The 
Prophet Jeremiah has an allusion to the wandering of the swal- 
low, which he includes among other migratory birds : “ Yea, the 
stork m the heavens knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle, 
and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming ; 
but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.” — Jer., viii. 
L Indeed, it is but just to the common sense of man to say that 
the obvious fact of the migration of those swift-winced birds 
seems only to have been doubted during a century or so ; and 
among the achievements of our OAvn age may be numbered that of 
a return to the simple truth on this point of ornithology. We hear 
nothing now-a-days of the mud or cave theories. 
Thursday, 2^th . — Brilhant day. Passed the afternoon on the 
lake. Tlie ^^ews were very beautiful. Downy seeds of various 
kinds, thistle, dandelion, &c., &c., were thickly strewed over the 
bosom of the lake ; we had never before observed such numbers 
of them lying on the water. ^ 
Saw a crane of the largest size flying over the lake, a mile or 
* It is said that Linnicus firmly believed that the swallows went under water 
during the winter ; and even M. Cuvier declared that the bank swallows had 
this habit. At present the idea is quite abandoned for want of proof. 
