NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 33 



It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks and 

 snipes ; but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, 

 which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any 

 of our English hawks j neither could I find any like it at the 



COMMON RAT. 



curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gardens. I found it 

 nailed up at the end of a barn, which.is the countryman's museum. 7 

 The parish I live in is a^very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills 

 and woods, and therefore full of birds. 



NOTES TO LETTER X. 



1 The reader will observe, as he proceeds, that White leans more and more to 

 the idea that swallows live in a state of torpidity through the winter, and do 

 not migrate. He never, however, discovered any proof of this theory. It has 

 been ascertained beyond a doubt that swallows do migrate, and that if any 

 solitary individuals do lie torpid, it is because they were too weak at the end of 

 the summer to undertake their long journey to warmer countries. It is ques- 

 tionable, however, whether any such specimens live through the winter, although 

 it is of course possible that they might exist in some sheltered crevice where 

 insects might also hide and cluster. The late appearance of solitary swallows 

 simply shows that some have lingered beyond others, and the early appearance 

 of some in spring is in -'accordance with the usual practice of migratory birds, 

 pioneers arriving before the main body. 



If any swallows appeared during some of the warm days we sometimes have 

 in December and January, when insects are abroad, it would point to the 

 hybernation of some specimens, but I am not aware of any such occurrences. 

 Mr. Jesse, in his edition of White, gives an instance of a pair of swallows 

 (presumably house-martins) sealing up their young in their nest, and the young 

 ones lived until the next spring, when they pecked their way out. This 

 interesting instance, however, did not come under his own observation. The 



