LIFE OF WILSON. 
clxxxv 
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 indi- 
viduals of this tribe that flit before him, fix his eye on a parti- 
cular 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 various 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 extend- 
ed 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 circumference 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 millponds, to 
bury itself in the mud with eels and snapping turtles; or to 
creep ingloriously 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 wise men of Europe and 
America, who have published so many credible 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; — the swallow alone, on 
VOL. I. — A a 
