14 
EIGHTH REPORT. 
Formerly well-known scientific men spoke rather confidently of cer¬ 
tain birds as migrating only by day and of others which journeyed only 
at night; possibly there may be a few species which can still be placed 
in one or the other category, but the number is dwindling every year. 
The old reasoning,—that because a robin with two white wing-feathers 
had nested for three consecutive summers in the same tree, therefore 
all robins regularly return to the places of their birth; or that be¬ 
cause certain sparrows and warblers were killed by flying against light¬ 
houses, therefore these kinds migrated only at night; such reasoning— 
if it can be so called—has given place largely to better logic and thie 
student of today is beginning to demand absolute proof of many of 
the statements which were accepted as established facts fifty years ago. 
A writer of repute as late as the eighteenth century, soberly advanced 
the hypothesis that when birds disappeared at the approach of winter 
they took refuge on the moon; and he even estimated the time neces¬ 
sary to reach that haven, and suggested the possibility of smaller inter¬ 
vening satellites as islands on which the weary songsters might rest 
before completing their trip! Those who scouted this theory suggested 
various more or less absurd substitutes, and even during the nineteenth 
century many good people firmly believed that some swallows plunged 
into lakes and buried themselves in the mud at the approach of cold 
weather, while other species—particularly the chimney swifts, gathered 
in multitudes in hollow trees or caverns in the rocks, there to lie torpid 
until wakened to life by the warmth of returning spring. Nor was 
there any lack of evidence in support of this theory of hibernation. 
In 1878 Dr. Elliott Coues, one of the most brilliant and gifted ornith¬ 
ologists that America has produced, and a good physician as well, de¬ 
voted five pages of his Birds of the Colorado Valley to th;e possible 
hibernation of swallows, giving references to upwards of twenty-five 
papers on this subject and reviewing the evidence with his customary 
keenness and impartiality. In conclusion he said in part: “The thing is 
physically and physiologically feasible; it is in strict analogy with 
observed phenomena in the cases of many other animals; it is not more 
marvelous than catalepsy, trance, and several other conditions of life 
the rationale of which is still obscure. Finally, it is attested by the 
most positive, direct and explicit testimony of eye-witnesses, whose 
veracity is unimpeached, whose competency is unchallenged, and who, 
being neither knaves nor dupes, have reiterated the evidence for a 
period of several centuries. . T have never seen anything of 
the sort, nor have I ever known one who had seen it; consequently I 
know nothing of the case but what I have read about it. But I have 
no means of refuting the evidence and consequently cannot refuse to 
recognize its validity. . . . For the rest I may add that I will 
not ignore, do not deny, and cannot vouch for the statements of 
authors.”* Thus the late Dr. Coues. As an additional bit of evidence 
in support of the possibility of bird hibernation I would add that a 
single living chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica) came down a chimney 
and into an office in Ottawa, Canada, the first week in February, 1883.. 
This bird was caught and examined by Mr. Whiteaves, Paleontologist 
and Zoologist to the Geological Survey of Canada, in whose office it 
appeared, and it lived several days after capture. 
* Birds of Colo. Valley, pp. 375 and 381. 
