42 NATURAL HISTORY 
LETTER X. 
August 4, 1767. 
Ir has been my misfortune never to have had any 
neighbours whose studies have led them towards 
the pursuit of natural knowledge ; so that, for want 
of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen 
my attention, | have made but slender progress in 
a kind of information to which I have been attach- 
ed from my childhood. 
Asto Swattows (hirundines rustice) being found 
in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of 
Wight or any part of this country, I never heard 
any such account worth attending to. Butaclergy- 
man of an inquisitive turn assures me that, when 
he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down 
the battlements of a church tower early in the 
spring, found two or three swifts (hirundines apodes) 
among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, 
dead; but, on being carried towards the fire, revi- 
ved. He told me that, out of his great care to pre- 
serve them, he put them in a paper bag and hung 
them by the kitchen fire, where they were suffoca- 
ted. 
Another intelligent person has informed me that, 
while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in 
Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell down 
one stormy winter on the beach, and that many 
people found swallows among the rubbish; but, on 
my questioning him whether he saw any of those 
birds himself, to my no small disappointment he 
answered me in the negative, but that others assu- 
red him they did. 
Young broods of swallows began to appear this 
