Meteorological Instinct.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 30, Issue 9186, 13 October 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

Meteorological Instinct.

Professor Cleveland has done 500* serriea to scisnce and common seuse in refuting (in * lecture delivered before the Franklin In•titine) the popular errors—l may call them superstitions concerning the" power of snimals to predict the weather some time ia advance. He attributes tlieir migrations and hibernating habits to the inherited resulted experience of many past ases, or to natural causes beyond their control. Mr own tbeorr of the southward flying swallow is shamsfully unpoetical. He feeds on firing msecta, chiefly gnats. A little observation wiilshow that as the cold weather advances from the north, these creatures cease to develop to the perfect form, but remain dormant 13 their pup.-n and lav.*e stages. The swallow simply follows his food, proceeding onward and southward, if necessary across narrow straits, such as the English Channel, wherfl the opposite coast is visible to the birds in high flight. Some that And warm qnartert and sufficient supply on this side of thi Channel do not all go across. Gilbert Whitl speaks of those seen in such localities as th« mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhavea coming forth from holes on mild days in th* winter. Oa such days in such places enati may commonly be seen. Changes of weathei preceded by variations of the hygrometi? condition of the air are undoubtedly indi. cated a few hours in advance by both animals and plants. Thus swallows fiy low before rain, because the humiditv of the ait damps the wings and bodies of the gnat* and disables them from soaring far abovf the ground. The swallows feed accord- • Ingly.