NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
to 
~ 
to 
Li? Wee 20 Vis 
TO THE SAME, 
SELBORNE, Nov. 222d, 1777- 
DEAR SIR,—You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th 
of last March were very hot days,—so sultry that everybody com- 
plained and were restless under those sensations to which they had 
not been reconciled by gradual approaches, 
This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer 
coincidences; for on those two days the thermometer rose to 
sixty-six in the shade; many species of insects revived and came 
forth; some bees swarmed in this neighbourhood; the old 
tortoise, near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened and came forth out of 
its dormitory ; and, what is most to my present purpose, many 
house-swallows appeared and were very alert in many places, and 
particularly at Chobham, in Surrey. 
But as that short warm period was succeeded as well as preceded 
by harsh severe weather, with frequent frosts and ice, and cutting 
winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise retired again into the 
ground, and the swallows were seen no more until the toth of 
April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began 
to prevail. 
Again; it appears by my journals for many years past that 
house-martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of October ; 
so that a person not very observant of such matters would conclude 
that they had taken their last farewell; but then it may be seen in 
my diaries also that considerable flocks have discovered themselves 
again in the first week of November, and often on the 4th day 
of that month only for one day; and that not as if they were in 
actual migration, but playing about at their leisure and feeding 
calmly, as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated their spirits. 
* This letter was first published by Barrington in his ‘‘ Miscellanies,’’ in an essay “‘On 
the Torpidity of the Swallow Tribe, when they Disappear,’’ p. 225, and is prefaced as 
follows : “I shall here subjoin a letter which I received from that ingenious and observant 
naturalist, the Rev. Mr. White, of Selborne, in Hampshire.” It appears to have been 
printed as received. The opinions given in this letter have been generated apparently by 
his correspondence with Barrington, and those contained in the last paragraph especially 
or in Letter LY., cannot be maintained. 
