The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1877-06-22
YHe Information of Sscalfo,Cs.

The HiGePENttOb or StFNUotcS.
The controversy respecting the al
leged ilibernation of swallt ws aas re-
ceived a new contribution in Il let ter
written bv Sir John Mcneil to his
brother-in law, the Duke of Argyll and
printed in late numb n of Nature.
A fter few preliminary remarks, The
writer continues as follows:
"a bout twenty five miles south OF
Teheran, the CAPITAL of Persia, there is I,
village called kenaragird, near which
is n stream of brackish water running
in deep bed with nearly perpendicu-
lar banks some forty or fifty feet high
Being largely impregnated with salt,
this stream is rarely if ever frozen,
and in frosty weatL Ler is resorted to
By focks of wild ducks. During a
frost of unusual severity | went from
Teheran to Kenaragird, accompanied
by Sir Henry Rawlinson, for the pur-
pose of duck shooting, She severity OF
the frost promising good sport. Hav
ing slept at the village. we next morn
ing followed the downward course of
the stream along the north bank, and
had proceeded about a mile, | should
think, when we came to place whore
there had, quite recently, been small
land slip. The brink of the bank to
the extent of perhaps twenty feet in
length, and ten or twelve broad in the
middle, taperng off to each end, had
slipped. but had not fallen down the
bank. Between this detached portion
and the perpendicular face about ten
feet high, from which it had broken off,
we saw, to our great surprise, n num-
Der of swallows, not less, am sure,
than twenty or thirty, lying, as | at
first supposed, dead, but on taking up
one of them | found that it was alive
but dormant; it was warm and its
breathing was quite perceptible.
examined a considerable number and
found that they were al. alive and
breathing, bnt none of them gave any
sign of consciousness.
MY attention was then attracted to
the perpendicular face at our left,
which was perforated bv vast mum
Der of holes, each about the size of
rat Eole. On looking into such of
these as | was tai. enough to see into,
| found in all of them swallows in the
same dormant state. | was able with
finger and thumb to pull out swallows
from several of these holes, and in
each case found that the hole, which
penetrated horizontally a considerable
way into the bank, contained more
swallows in the same cAditiCn. In
10 case did | see one lying on another
they were all lying singly with their
heads inward, each head touching the
tail of the bird before it. How Ear
these holes penetrated into the bank,
or what number of swallows each con-
tanned, did not ascertain but it is
those dOrmitories must have been in
the external face of the portion that
had slipped, which, as | have stated,
was, in the middle, from ten 20 twelve
feet thick The holes i'm the undis-
turbed portion may probably have
been Of equal or greater length, and if
SO the number OF swallows alternating
there must have amounted to many
hundreds
~ 10 lliC tO'Dtt - l'u' ttt--'llS ptiih,
sand or river swallow-whic ch is re-
ported by some ornithologist to hiber-
nate occasionally instead Of migrating
on the approach of winter, like the
otner mem hers of the hirundintdce
family. OF the fifty different species
of swallows this is the smallest, being
only ~ inches long and lOb inches
from the extended tip of one wing to
that of the other. Its color is grayish
brown above, sometimes approaching
to a sOoty hue, white beneath, with q
band across the breast and sides of
the same tint as the back Unlike the
others. it has no partialitv for the So
ciety of man, but dwells in communi-
ties along the sides OF sandy pits or
river banks, in which it, eXcavateS a
tubular gallery, often of considerable
length, for breeding purposes. 1t is
found in immense muluitudes in sever
al places on the Ohio river and is
widely distributed all over the United
States. There is no appreciahle diff
ference between the American and
European birds, though in the British
Isles the latter aIe generally known by
the rame of sand martins s-RurdL
NelC Yorker
THE DANUBE-The river Danube