BARN SWALLOW. 
41.3 
lines it describes. Alas! even his omnipotent fluxions would 
avail him little here, and he would soon abandon the taf3k in 
despair. Yet, that some definite 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 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 extended to ten years (many of our small birds 
being known to live much longer even in a state of domestica- 
tion), 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 cir- 
cumference of the globe! Yet this little loinged 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, ri- 
vers, and mill ponds 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 on 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 to southern regions at the approach of winter; — the 
Swallow alone, on whom heaven has conferred superior powers 
of wing, must sink in torpidity at the bottom of our rivers, or 
doze all winter in the caverns of the earth. I am myself some- 
thing of a traveller, and foreign countries aflbrd many novel 
sights: should I assert, that in some of my peregrinations I had 
met with a nation of Indians, all of whom, old and young, at 
the commencement of cold weather, descend to the bottom of 
their lakes and rivers, and there remain until the breaking up 
of frost; nay, should I affirm, that thousands of people in the 
neighbourhood of this city, regularly undergo the same semi- 
annual submersion — that I myself had fished up a whole family 
