Of observers whose writings are extant, Aristotle, naturalist and philosopher of ancient Greece, was one of the first to discuss the subject of bird migration. He noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to the marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, and that pelicans, geese, swans, rails, doves, and many other birds likewise passed to warmer regions to spend the winter. In the earliest years of the Christian era, the elder Pliny, Roman naturalist, in his Historia Naturalis, repeated much of what Aristotle had said on migration and added comments of his own concerning the movements of the European blackbird, the starling, and the thrushes. In spite of the keen perception shown in some of his statements Aristotle also must be credited with the origin of some superstitious beliefs that persisted for several centuries. One of these, that of hibernation, became so firmly rooted that Dr. Elliott Coues (1878),[1] one of America's greatest ornithologists, listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. The hibernation theory accounted for the autumnal disappearance of certain species of birds by having them pass into a torpid state and so remain during the cold season, hidden in hollow trees, caves, or in the mud of marshes. Aristotle ascribed hibernation not only to swallows, but also to storks, kites, doves, and others. Some early naturalists wrote fantastic accounts of the flocks of swallows that allegedly were seen congregating in the marshes until their accumulated weight bent into the water the reeds on which they clung and thus submerged the birds. It was even recorded that when fishermen in northern waters drew up their nets they sometimes had a mixed "catch" of fish and hibernating swallows. Clarke (1912) quotes Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, who in 1555 published a work entitled "Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalis et Natura," wherein he observed that if swallows so caught were taken into a warm room they would soon begin to fly about but would live only a short time. [1] Publications referred to parenthetically by date are listed in the Bibliography, p. 94. The hibernation theory survived for more than 2,000 years and, until the winter home of the chimney swift was discovered in 1944 through the recovery of banded individuals, it was occasionally repeated by credulous persons to account for the sudden disappearance of the immense flocks that each autumn gather in southern Georgia and northern Florida. Although the winter range is still unknown in fullest detail, Lincoln (1944b) has shown that some of these birds spend the winter season in northeastern Peru.