INTRODUCTION. 
Ixix 
land birdSi* the fo/mation of the organs of respiration, and the powers of 
the wing of the Swallow ; the want of that structure of the heart, which 
distinguishes fishes and amphibious animals ; the slightness of their cloth- 
ing, the openness of their nostrds, the impossibility of existing when the 
air is excluded, or of moulting in the stream ; the testimony of various 
persons who have seen Swallows actually in their journey to distant lands ; 
and the well known migration of the Woodcock, the Fieldfare, the Stork, 
the Redwing, and the Crane. Besides, the doctrine of submersion took its 
rise in the days of darkness and superstition, and the credulity of its 
founder seemed to increase in an inverse ratio to probability. He fishes 
up myriads of Swallows from the vasty deep, and revives them with as 
much facility, as the rays of the Sun expand the buds of the vegetable 
world. It is charitable to presume, that the Reverend Archbishop was 
the dupe of the designing, who imposed on his credulity by false reports. 
In septentrionalibus aquis, saspius casu piscatoris extraliuntur hirundines, in inodum con- 
glomeratse massae, quas ore ad os, et ala ad alam, et pede ad pedem, post principium autumni sese 
inter cannas descensurae colligarunt. Massa autem ilia per imperitos adolescentes extracta, atque 
in sstuaria portata, caloris accessu hirundines resolutae, volare quidein incipiunt, sed exiguo tempore 
durant. Lib. ig. cap. 2g. Ol. Mag. Hist. Etmuller, in his dissertations, asserts the same, and 
bears witness to it. Several naturalists have credited and supported this strange opinion; and 
even a modern traveller of some note, Mr. Forster, attempts to revive it. Spallanzani, that inde- 
fatigable and accurate investigator of nature, appears at one time to have credited the submersion 
of Swallows; the only doubt, which he raises, is, whether the Swallows, spoken of by those who 
support this doctrine, are of the species well known to us, or are birds of similar size, colour, and 
figure, but ot a different nature ; he concludes, from various experiments made to discover whe- 
tlier birds of the Swallow tribes are capable of supporting cold, that Swallows, found in water, or 
under ice, are specifically different from ours, because these are destroyed by a small degree of 
cold. To elucidate this question, he confined nine Swallows, in an ice-house, which, without 
becoming lethargic, languished, grew debilitated insensibly, and died within forty-one hours. 
Their deaths were not occasioned by hunger, as others lived without food even for five days, while 
the most vivacious existed under the influence of the cold of the ice-house but forty-eight hours; 
and he, therefore, ascribes the acceleration of their deaths merely to the privation of heat. The 
author has made many experiments for the purpose of elucidating this question, which v/ill be 
stated in the Appendix to this work. 
