128 
BARN SWALLOW. 
mown field, meadow, or river shore, for a short time, and, 
among the numerous individuals of this tribe that, flit before 
him, fix his eye on a particular one, and follow, for a while, 
all its circuitous labyrinths — its extensive sweeps — its sudden, 
rapidly reiterated zigzag excursions, little inferior to the 
lightning itself, — and then attempt, by the powers of mathe- 
matics, 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 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 
farther, 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 domestication,) the amount of all these, allowing 
three hundred and sixty-five days to a year, would give us 
two million one hundred and ninety thousand miles ; upwards 
of eighty-seven times the circumference of the globe ! Yet 
this little 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 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 Cat Bird, 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 something of a traveller, and foreign countries afford 
