LIFE OF WILSON. 
clxxxix 
Dr. Reeve, in treating of the migration of birds, makes the 
following judicious observations: “ It is singular that this sub- 
ject should still admit of doubt, when it seems so easy to be de- 
cided; 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 wood- 
cock, have been supposed to remain torpid during the winter 
months. And what is the evidence in favour of so strange 
and monstrous a supposition? Nothing but the most vague tes- 
timonies, and histories repugnant to reason and experience. 
‘‘ Other birds are admitted to migrate, and why should swal- 
lows be exempt from the general law of their nature? When 
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 
repeat the experiment, he would have soon discovered, that when the vital 
juices of an animal become decomposed by an acid, and their place supplied 
by a spirituous fluid, something more than the mfluence of solar heat will be 
requisite to re-animate a fabric, which has, in effect, lost tliat upon which ex- 
istence mainly depends. 
The writer of this sketch has made several experiments upon flies, with 
the view of ascertaining the possibility of their being resuscitated after having 
been drowned in Madeira wine; but in every instance his experiments had a 
different result from Dr. Franklin’s. He submerged them in the wine for dif- 
ferent periods, viz. six months, eighteen hours, six hours, one hour; and in 
the last instance they showed signs of life until ten minutes before they were 
removed for the benefit of the air and sun. Of tliree flies used in the last ex- 
periment, only one was reanimated, but after a few convulsive struggles it ex- 
pu-ed. 
Three flies were afterwards drowned in pure water; and after having been 
kept in tliat state for seventeen hours, they were exposed to the sun for several 
hours, but they gave no signs of life. 
Upon a re-perusal of Franklin’s “ Observations upon the Prevailing Doc- 
trines of Life and Death,” in which the story of the flies is inserted, it appears 
obvious to me, tliat the flies which “ fell into the first glass that was filled,” 
were either accidentally thrown into it, or had been in it unperceived, and on 
this supposition a recovery from suspended animation would have nothing in 
it which might be thought marvellous. 
