HIBERNATION 
fat is absorbed and aids in keeping up the strength of the 
bird during the cold and starving period. Numerous 
instances of migratory birds remaining in Great Britain are 
met with, and many are easily accounted for, — wounded 
wings or injured feathers are quite sufficient to detain 
them ; and the dying down and withering of the vegetation, 
thereby affording little shelter, render landrails more 
likely to be discovered, although they creep into almost 
any place for concealment. That some birds can exist for 
six or seven days without food or water is a fact of which 
the writer can furnish undoubted proof; but a really 
hibernating bird has at present an existence only in the 
imagination, and would be as difficult to find as Queen 
Anne’s ghost. 
When once a belief is well and widely established, it 
appears to me to be quite useless, however frequently it 
may be contradicted and the truth of the story denied, to 
try to make converts to a contrary opinion. It is like 
weeds in a garden, which crop up again and again only 
to be destroyed for a time. To get entirely rid of them 
seems impossible. A case in point is the old story of the 
hibernation of the swallow, which lingers still in many 
parts of this country. Only as late as April 2, 1881, there 
appeared in Land and Water a letter upon this subject. 
I wrote the following in reply : — 
THE SUPPOSED HIBERNATION OF SWALLOWS. 
It appears to me to be most extraordinary that any 
persons having only a trifling knowledge of birds and 
their habits should at the present day entertain for one 
moment the slightest doubt upon this subject, and that 
they, in order to give a little strength to this doubt, 
should refer to the ancient but long-exploded statements 
225 Q 
