a protracted incarceration, effected by man, and therefore without their
will. In 1809, on opening a gap in a wall at Bamborough, in
Northumberland, for the passage of carts, a Toad, which had been
incarcerated in the centre of a wall, was found alive, and set at
liberty. A mason, named George Wilson, when building this wall, sixteen
years before, had wantonly immured the animal, in a close cavity formed
of lime and stone, just sufficient to contain it, and which he plastered
so closely as seemingly to prevent the admission of air. When
discovered, it seemed at first, as must naturally be supposed, in a very
torpid state; but it soon recovered animation and activity, and, as if
sensible of the blessings of freedom, made its way to a collection of
stones, and disappeared.[107]
Mr F. W. L. Ross of Broadway House, near Topsham, an acute and
experienced naturalist, narrates the following circumstances:--"In the
year 1821, I was residing in the country, and in my court-yard was a set
of stone steps for mounting on horseback. These being useless to me, I
desired they might be removed. On taking them down, the lowest step, a
coarse red conglomerate, measuring about three feet in length, ten
inches in depth, and about fourteen in width, was raised by a heavy bar.
It had been well bedded in mortar, in which, while soft, a Toad had been
evidently placed, as there was no appearance of any way by which it
could have found ingress or egress, the mould or cast being as perfect
as if taken in plaster. On the removal of the stone, the Toad remained
torpid for a few minutes, when it seemed to revive, and then crept out.
From the owners of the property I ascertained that the steps had been
placed there forty-five years before, and, to the best of their
knowledge, had never been moved.
"The second account is from a clergyman, and originated in my informing
him of the above. He caused a pit to be dug in his garden, six feet
deep; at the bottom was laid a slate, on which a full-sized Toad was
placed, with an inverted flower-pot over it. The hole and edges were
well luted with clay; the pit was then filled in, and on that day twelve
months reopened, when the Toad was found alive, and as well as when
inclosed in its living tomb. If, therefore, it could exist in such a
state for twelve months, it is not impossible that it might do so for a
much longer period."[108]
These curious facts derive confirmation and augmented interest from
some apparently parallel conditions observed of other animals, widely
removed in the organic scale from the Reptilia, and that on both sides.
Some glimpses of an indefinitely protracted torpidity in Wasps are given
to us in a communication from an eminent entomologist, Mr G. Wailes of
Newcastle, to the Entomological Society of London, and published in
their "Proceedings" of March 5, 1860. These Rip Van Winkles of the
insect race choose, it seems, the tops of loftiest mountains for going
to their long sleep. Who knows what might be found if a clever
insect-hunter were to go stone-turning on the peaks of Ararat? Read the
following, young enterprising entomologists! and set out.
"It is very evident that we have a great deal yet to learn about the
Social Wasps, and therefore the following remarks as to _Vespa vulgaris_
may be interesting. Ever since 1829 I have, at intervals, searched the
summit of Skiddaw (3022 feet) for specimens of _Leistus montanus_, and
on every occasion have taken out from underneath the loose fragments of
the slate perfectly torpid females of this Wasp, with the wings, legs,
antennae, &c., precisely in the state in which we find them during winter
in the lower lands. Not unfrequently I have met with dead specimens
which seemed to have perished in the same dormant state, and been there
for a year or two at least. Mr Smith, in his catalogue of the British
Vespadae, under this species, states that Mr Wollaston found the female
abundant under stones on the extreme summit of Gribon Oernant, near
Llangollen, in September 1854, adding, 'probably hybernating for the
winter,' but had evidently forgotten my writing to him on the subject.
My visits to the mountain have extended from the latter end of June to
the latter end of August, and therefore it necessarily follows that
either these specimens of the female Wasp were those of the previous
year, or that this sex appears much earlier in the season than has
hitherto been supposed. But in either case the question arises, why are
they torpid during these the hottest months of the year? It is quite
true that the temperature of the altitude is below that of the plains,
especially during the night, and I have myself been enveloped in falling
sleet and snow more than once, both in June and August, though, as a
rule, the Cumberland mountains seldom have a thick covering of snow, and
often only a few inches once or twice in the winter. Still, the
temperature of ordinary mountains always approaches that of the plains
in summer, and, one would have expected, was in Britain at least
sufficiently high to rouse these Wasps in their winter quarters, when
every other insect under the same stones was active and stirring, and
the air so warm and bright that _Larentia salicata_ and _Crambus
furcatillus_ were sporting in the mid-day sun above them. Such, however,
was not the case, and when turned out of their snug, dry quarters, they
allowed themselves to be handled and put into pill-boxes just as they do
in winter. We may therefore ask, when are these sleepers to awake? for
as the ground temperature reaches its maximum during the months in which
I have met with them, and Mr Wollaston has found them in a similar
state in September, when a declining temperature has set in, we must
conclude that for that year all prospect of their subsequent issue from
their retreats through the influence of heat is barred. Can this be
called hybernation, as it is usually understood? Or is there some other
cause of torpidity besides mere cold? Or are we to conclude that when
once put to sleep in these lofty regions, they wake no more unless
kindly removed into a milder clime by a stray entomologist, when, as I
have always noticed, they become as active as those of the warm
lowlands?"[109]
Mr Westwood, in the conversation that ensued on this communication,
suggested that these female Wasps had been the founders of colonies in
the preceding spring, and, after performing their maternal duties, had
retired to die in the situations in which they were found by Mr Wailes.
But with all due deference to so great an authority, is not this another
example of those "explanations" which are thrown off without a due
consideration of the exigencies of the case in hand--explanations which
really explain nothing? For though this hypothesis might account for
Wasps found under such conditions in June, it will not do for the
September findings. Insects that had performed the end of their
existence and had retired to die in June, would not live through July
and August, and be found alive in September. Besides, Mr Wailes
distinctly affirms, that _they always become active_ when removed to a
milder clime, which is proof positive that they had not retired to die.
Mr Smith's hypothesis, that they are "probably hybernating for the
winter," will not account for their torpidity in June and July. Mr
Westwood's hypothesis, that they are moribund individuals after their
spring work, will not explain their vitality till September, and their
revivification when removed.
But these are insects; and the difference between vertebrate and
invertebrate life is so vast that, after all, the possibilities of the
latter may not have much bearing on those of the former. What, then,
shall we say to an indefinite prolongation of life under like dreary
conditions in--_Bats_? _Bats_, which are true vertebrata; and no
amphibia grovelling at the bottom of the vertebrate ladder, where the
dim flame of spinal life is just glimmering in the socket, but
_Mammalia_, and those of nearly the highest type;--_Bats_, which Linnaeus
associated with _Homo sapiens_ himself in his first Order _Primates_!
Can _these_ live for years shut up from light and food and air? these
great-chested, well-lunged, warm-blooded, aerial quadrupeds?
"Impossible! I would not believe it, if----" Stay! make no rash vows;
but read, weigh, and judge. Remember,--both the following statements are
by clergymen, each of whom is a well-known, careful, experienced
naturalist.
"A very curious instance," says Mr Pemberton Bartlett, "of the great
length of time that a Bat can remain in a state of torpidity, came under
my notice about three weeks since; and as I believe instances of the
kind are but rarely observed, perhaps an account of the facts of the
case may not prove uninteresting. Upon opening a vault in Bishopsbourne
church, the bricklayer observed a large Bat clinging to the wall.
Thinking it a curious thing to find a Bat in a vault which he knew had
not been opened for twenty years, in the evening he sent it to me by his
boy, who, when he arrived at the door, was tempted to open the basket to
look at the inmate, when most unfortunately it made its escape, and
flitted into a leaden spout which was placed against the house, from
whence I was unable to recover it. Upon learning the particulars of its
discovery, I made a careful search about the vault, but was unable to
trace any hole or crack through which the smallest Bat could have crept.
The bricklayer also informed me that there was no place where a Bat
could have entered, in the part where he opened the vault, as the
entrance was bricked up, and over the steps was a slab which fitted
close. If, indeed, it had been possible for a Bat to have got between
this, the brickwork at the entrance would most effectually have
prevented it from finding an asylum in the vault. The natural inference
therefore is, that the Bat must have got into the vault when it was last
opened, and consequently had been entombed since the year 1823! It was
most unfortunate that I was unable to decide what species it was; but,
from the bricklayer's description, I think it must have been
_Vespertilio Pipistrellus_. When first taken out of the vault it was in
a torpid state, but the effects of the air may be imagined from its
taking the first opportunity to escape in the evening; it flew,
however, far more 'leaden winged' than ever bats are wont to fly, which
was by no means marvellous, when we consider it had been out of practice
for twenty-one years."[110]
The next account, by the Rev. A. C. Smith, of Yatesbury Rectory, Calne,
is one of peculiar interest. The narrator actually witnessed the
discovery. His investigation was pursued with the cautious care, and his
statement is made with the precision, which belong to science; and the
details are so full, and his remarks so appropriate, that though the
story is somewhat long, I cannot bring myself to abridge it. It bears
date, Feb. 18, 1854. Of course, the reader will note how these two
narratives yield each other mutual corroboration.
"While effecting some repairs in the pavement of the aisle of my church,
a short time since, the masons found it necessary to remove some bricks
from the solid wall of an adjacent vault, in order the better to adjust
an iron bar intended to support the superincumbent flagstone. It seems
that one or two bricks being removed, and several large and handsome
coffins being exposed to view, curiosity tempted one of the workmen to
reach his hand in with a lighted candle, in order to see the names and
dates on the coffins; the result of which investigation shewed that the
last coffin was placed there in 1748. During this search I entered the
church, just in time to witness the extreme surprise, and the no little
consternation, of the man, whose hand had suddenly come in contact with
a Bat, suspended from the roof of the vault. The Bat was soon brought
to light; and, in its half-torpid state, placed in my hand. We then
proceeded to make a very minute examination of this vault with a lighted
candle, in order to discover, if possible, by what means the Bat could
have penetrated to its resting-place: but, although our search was very
careful and long continued, we failed to discover the smallest crack or
crevice in which a pin could be thrust. The roof was an arch of brick,
surmounted by flagstones; the sides were solid masonry, bearing no
appearance internally of decay; and the position of the vault was very
near the centre of the church: so that I was much puzzled to account for
the occurrence of the Bat in a place apparently hermetically sealed for
above a hundred years; and knew not how to combat the opinion of the
workmen, that it must have been entombed there alive since the year
1748.
"I now proceeded to institute inquiries regarding the vault in which the
Bat was found. The marble monument above, recorded the names of an old
Wiltshire family long since extinct in these parts, and the dates of the
three coffins below, corroborating the statement of the brass plate,
that the individual last buried died A.D. 1748. Several old men in the
parish remembered an adjacent vault being opened, when they were boys,
nearly sixty years since: but all positively denied that the vault in
question had ever been opened in their lives: and one, a very old man,
formerly clerk, and whose then residence abutted on the churchyard, was
very emphatic on this point. So that I am constrained to believe that
the vault has remained untouched since it received its last occupant, a
hundred and six years ago: and I am the more convinced of this from the
excessive freshness of the last coffin, the brass plate and nails of
which are as bright, and its whole appearance as new, as if it had been
placed there but yesterday, which would not have been the case had the
external air been admitted at any time since the vault was closed.
"During the time of the examination of the vault, the Bat was held in my
hand, and above an hour must have elapsed since its capture before I was
enabled to take it to the Rectory, and place it under an inverted glass:
by this time the warmth of my hand had considerably revived it, and it
wandered round its prison, snuffing about with its curious nose, and
standing up, and trying to hook itself on to the smooth glass, which
baffled all its attempts. As it obstinately refused to eat small pieces
of chopped meat, with which I tempted it to break its fast, which may
have continued a hundred and six years, and after which I should have
imagined it to be ravenous; and as it lay on its side, apparently in a
dying state, humanity urged me to give it a chance of life, by restoring
it to liberty, and I accordingly carried it to the garden, where I
placed it upon the turf, and watched its movements. At first it clung to
the blades of grass, and shivered a good deal; presently it fluttered
along the ground; soon it rose upon the wing, though in an awkward
manner, and although it sank several times, as if about to fall to the
ground, and as if it had not found the use of its wings, (which might
have been a little stiff for want of exercise, if they had been closed
above a hundred years), it passed behind a clump of trees and I saw it
no more; and then I began to regret, when too late, that I had not made
more efforts to keep it alive and watch its recovery. I know little of
the different species of Bats, but, from its diminutive size, and
extremely long ears, I should imagine it to be the _Vespertilio auritus_
of Gilbert White.
"Now, if the hypothesis be deemed absurd that the Bat had been immured
in the vault since 1748, how then are we to account for its presence
there? For although I am aware that a Bat, and especially one of the
smallest species, would creep through a very small crack or crevice, yet
the evidence of my own senses, after a very close examination, convinces
me that not even the smallest crack existed between the bricks of the
vault; and I think the evidence no less conclusive that the vault has
remained untouched for a great number of years. Again, notwithstanding
the disbelief of some, it is very generally acknowledged that Toads do
occasionally exist in blocks of stone and in timber; and the material in
which they are inclosed having gradually formed around them, they must
necessarily have been entombed, in some well-authenticated cases, for a
very long period of time. Why then, I ask, should we deny that to be
possible with the Bat, which we so readily concede to be an occurrence
by no means unusual with the Toad? I own, that, taking all these things
into account, and finding no other possible solution for the mystery, I
came to the conclusion, after mature deliberation, that the Bat had
been entombed in the vault since it last was opened in the year 1748.
That impression has increased upon longer reflection, and has been
further strengthened almost into certainty, from the perusal of a very
interesting and very similar case, recorded by the Rev. J. P. Bartlett
in an early volume of the _Zoologist_ (_Zool._, 613.)[111] That
gentleman states, that on opening a vault which had been closed for
twenty-one years, a Bat was discovered in a torpid state; that he
himself made a very careful search about the vault, and was unable to
discover any crack through which the smallest Bat could have crept; that
the vault was surrounded with brickwork; the entrance was bricked up,
and over the steps was placed a close-fitting slab; and that he could
come to no other conclusion than that the Bat had been inclosed there
for twenty-one years. I confess that I quite agree in opinion with Mr
Bartlett, and believe that the Bat discovered in the vault in
Bishopsbourne church crept in on the occasion of its last opening: and
so in the like manner with the one found in my own church; for although
there is unquestionably a vast difference between twenty-one and a
hundred and six years, yet, if we can establish the fact of a Bat
remaining torpid for the shorter period, I find no difficulty in
understanding that a sleep which would endure so long as that did, might
be protracted to a far longer period. It is most probable that many will
differ from me in opinion, and perhaps some will ridicule the idea: if
they can discover any other probable or even possible means of
accounting for the presence of the Bat in the vault, exclusive of a
crack or chink in it, or of its having been opened within the memory of
living man, both of which views I firmly oppose, I shall feel greatly
obliged by their stating their opinions in the _Zoologist_: meanwhile I
hold to my belief, that the Bat had been there for not less than _one
hundred and six years_!"[112]
[97] Bell's _Brit. Rept._ (1839), 112.
[98] _Zoologist_, 614.
[99] _Zool._, 1879.
[100] _Zool._, 3632.
[101] _Zool._, 3808.
[102] _Zool._, 3848.
[103] _Zool._, 3904.
[104] _Zool._, 5959.
[105] _Zool._, 6537.
[106] _Ibid._, 6565.
[107] Richardson's _Borderer's Table Book_, iii. 92.
[108] _Zool._, 3266.
[109] _Zool._, 6941.
[110] _Zool._, 613.
[111] See page 183, _ante_.
[112] _Zool._, 4245.
V.
HYBERNATION OF SWALLOWS.
What becomes of our swallows in the winter? They migrate, you reply,
to a warmer parallel. That is true, no doubt; though there have not
been wanting naturalists of respectable name who have maintained that
none of them ever leave the country. No doubt, however, they do migrate;
but is this true of the entire body, or only of a portion? That the
whole hirundinal population--swifts, swallows, martins, and
bank-martins--disappear from view, every one knows; for who ever saw any
of the tribe wheeling and traversing through the sky in the frosts of
January or February? But so do the Bats and the Butterflies. Now, the
Bats hybernate with us, concealing themselves in crevices, caves, hollow
trees, unused buildings, and similar places; so do the house-flies; so
do the butterflies, some species at least, and many other insects. Do
the Swallows hybernate? That they do is a very old opinion; and those
homely but wide-spread rhymes that record so many accepted facts in
popular natural history, record _this_ as a fact. Our rustic children
sing--
"The bat, the bee, the butterfly,
The cuckoo and the swallow,
The corn-crake and the wheat-ear,
They all sleep in the hollow."
Local variations--what we may call _lectiones variae_--exist; for
example, in the south-east of our island, the third line runs,
"The corn-crake and the _nightingale_."
In the north of Europe an opinion has long prevailed that the Swallows
not only hybernate in a state of torpidity, but, like the frogs and
toads, retire to the bottoms of pools to spend that dreary season. In
Berger's "Calendar of Flora," published in the _Am{oe}nitates
Academicae_, vol. iv., he puts down as the phenomenon proper to the 22d
of September, "_Hirundo submergitur_," talking, as Gilbert White
remarks, as familiarly of the Swallows going under water, as he would of
his poultry going to roost at sunset. Klein, and even Linnaeus himself,
adopted this strange opinion, which was considered to rest upon good
testimony, and that not only of the illiterate and unobservant.
Etmuller, who was Professor of Anatomy and Botany at Leipsig in the
middle of the seventeenth century, says, "I remember to have found more
than a bushel would hold of Swallows closely clustered among the reeds
of a fish-pond under the ice, all of them to appearance dead, but with
the heart still pulsating." And Derham, the acute author of
"Physico-theology," citing this statement, adds, "We had at a meeting of
the Royal Society, February 12, 1713, a further confirmation of Swallows
retiring under water in the winter from Dr Colas, a person very curious
in these matters, who, speaking of their way of fishing in the northern
parts by breaking holes and drawing their nets under the ice, saith,
that he saw sixteen Swallows so drawn out of the Lake of Lamrodt, and
about thirty out of the king's great pond in Rosneilen; and that at
Schlehitten, near a house of the Earl of Dohna, he saw two Swallows just
come out of the waters, that could, scarcely stand, being very wet and
weak, with their wings hanging on the ground; and that he observed the
Swallows to be often weak for some days after their appearance."[113]
The Academy of Upsal received the winter submersion of the Swallows as
an undoubted fact, and even Cuvier admits as "well authenticated, that
they fall into a lethargic state during winter, and even that they pass
that season at the bottom of marshy waters."[114] One would think that a
zoological statement which Linnaeus and Cuvier accepted, must be fact;
yet it remains utterly improbable. In Germany, a reward of an equal
weight in silver was publicly offered to any one who should produce
Swallows found under water, but we are assured that no one was found to
claim the money.
We may safely dismiss the notion of submersion till better
authenticated; but that of torpidity is still open to examination.
Statements to the effect that quantities of Swallows in a death-like
condition have been found in hollow trees, holes in cliffs, banks, &c.,
are even more common than those of their submersion; and they seem to
obtain credence in all the temperate or cold regions where the Swallows
are found. It is hard to think that a persuasion so widely diffused can
be wholly groundless.
Peter Collinson, the friend and correspondent of Linnaeus, communicated
to the Royal Society the following statement by M. Achard:--"In the
latter end of March I took my passage down the Rhine to Rotterdam. A
little below Basel, the south bank of the river was very high and steep,
of a sandy soil, sixty or eighty feet above the water.
"I was surprised at seeing, near the top of the cliff, some boys tied to
ropes, hanging down doing something. The singularity of these
adventurous boys, and the business they so daringly attempted, made us
stop our navigation, to inquire into the meaning of it. The waterman
told us they were reaching the holes in the cliffs for Swallows or
Martins, which took refuge in them, and remained there all the winter,
until warm weather, and then they came abroad.