18 NOVEMBER 1876, Page 3

A curious but not very well-authenticated story is given in

a letter to the Times of yesterday, from the Rev. F. 0. Morris, that in some cases the young of the swallow does not hibernate. His story, or rather the story related to him by his college friend, the Rev. Harcourt Aldham, Vicar of Stoke Prior, Worcestershire, but not observed even by him, but only told to him by "a person who vouched for it as a fact," was this,—that the latter had seen a pair of swallows, when the time for their migration came and found their young brood too weak to fly, plaster the nest up with mud with the six young swallows in it,—returning to it next spring to arouse the young swallows, who were none the worse for their long hibernation. This is a third-hand story, and we are not even told the ultimate authority for it, so there is no very good evidence. But Mr. Morris adds evidence from the book of Dr. Stanley (formerly Bishop of Norwich), on "The Familiar History of Birds," to the same effect. If this were true, it would partly justify an old superstition that the swallows do not migrate, but spend the winter in concealment in a torpid state. It is at least quite conceivable that a creature which had been a hibernator gene. rations ago, and which had since discovered the preferability of migration to a warmer climate, should yet be able to' return to its old habit in case of need. However, this story is not much in the way of evidence.