e evidence, then, seems to leave no room for reasonable
doubt, that a certain number of our _Hirundinidae_,--few, indeed, as
compared with the vast migrant population, but still considerable,
looked at _per se_,--for some reason or other, evade the task of a
southward flight, and remain, becoming torpid, occasionally betrayed
into a temporary activity, and resuming their active life, about the
same time, or occasionally a little _before_ the time, of the arrival of
their congeners from abroad. It is, however, desirable for the absolute
settlement of the question, that specimens, actually discovered in a
lethargic condition, should come under the observation of competent
scientific naturalists, _open to conviction_, who would leave them _in
situ_, keeping an eye on them from time to time till the return of warm
weather in spring. It is not enough to take them into a warm room, and
to shew that they revive in such circumstances: we want to know
positively whether they will be resuscitated normally and naturally by
the vernal warmth, and come forth spontaneously to sport, and wheel, and
skim, and soar, and stoop, and hawk, and twitter,--among their travelled
fellows. Who will undertake to decide the point in this manner? He will
have achieved a name in science.

[113] _Phys. Theol._, vii., Note _d_.

[114] _Regne Anim._, (Griffith's Ed.,) vii. 61.

[115] _Phil. Trans._, 1763.

[116] _Letter_ x.

[117] Stanley's _Fam. Hist. of Birds_, p. 263.

[118] _Edin. Journ._, viii.

[119] In Pennant's _Brit. Zool._

[120] _Brit. Zool._, App.

[121] _Zool._, 1136.

[122] Ibid., 2302.

[123] _Zool._, 2590.

[124] _Letter_ xxxviii.

[125] Ibid. xii.

[126] Ibid. xi.

[127] Ibid. xxxi.

[128] _Letter_ xxiii.

[129] _Orn. Dict._, Introd., xxvii.

[130] _Zool._, 5364.

[131] _Brit. Birds_, ii. 264.

[132] _Zool._, 2455.

[133] Ibid., 565.

[134] Ibid., 3753.

[135] _Zool._, 4945.

[136] Ibid., 4945.

[137] _Zool._, 4995.

[138] Ibid. 1639.

[139] _Letter_ xviii., 2d ser.

[140] _Zool._, 565.

VI.

THE CRESTED AND WATTLED SNAKE.

About the middle of the last century there existed in Amsterdam a Museum
of natural history, which, though accumulated by the zeal and industry
of a private individual, far exceeded in extent and magnificence any
collection then in the world. It had been gathered by Albert Seba, a
wealthy apothecary in the Dutch East India Company's service, who
fortunately pub