29 * 
the natural history 
March 1762. And the Hon. Dairies Barrington relates, on 
the authority of Lord Belhaven, that numbers of Swallows 
have been found in old dry walls, and fand hills, near his Icat 
in Eafl Lothian, in Scotland, not only once, bat year after 
year; and that when expofed to the warmth of fire, they re- 
vived. 
Some years ago, it is faid, they were feen in a torpid Rate, 
on the fall of a great fragment of the chalky cliffs ofSuffcx; 
and in a decayed hollow tree, cut down near Dolgelli, in 
Merionethfhire, in Males. 
In a cliff near Whitby, in Yorkfhirc, when digging for a 
fox, whole bufhels of torpid fwallows were found. 
Mr. Conway, of Syckton, in Flintfhire, in Wales, afferts, 
that a few years ago, looking down an old lead mine, in that 
countv, he obferved numbers of Swallows clinging to the 
timbers, feemingly afleep ; that on throwing fome gravel upon 
them, they ju(1 moved, but did not attempt to fly; this hap¬ 
pened between the latter end of Oftober and Chriftmas. 
. On the 23d of Oftober, 17(17, a Martin was feen in South¬ 
wark, flying in and out of a neff, and on the 29th of'Oclo- 
ber four or five Swallows were obferved to hover about, and 
fettle on the county hofpital at Oxford ; and once near 
Chriftmas, a few were noticed on the moulding of a window 
of Merton College. 
The advocates for this opinion, fupport their theory by 
the analogy of Bats, of Marmots, of Dormice, and Bears, 
who pafs the winter in a torpid Rate ; and urge, that the pro¬ 
digious exertions of this little bird, who, during the fummer, 
has been fo much on the wing, may require the refrefbment 
of a winter’s deep. On the other hand, it is objefled, that 
admitting thefe fatls to be true, they may have been acciden¬ 
tal cwcumftances. The birds fo found, might have been a 
lat hatch that were left behind, not being fufficiently ad¬ 
vanced 
