30 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



that district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank 

 martins, and there they avowedly breed, he was in hopes that 

 they might have slept there also, and that he might have sur- 

 prised them just as they were waking from their winter slumbers. 

 " When we had dug for some time," he says, " we found the holes 

 were horizontal and serpentine, as I had observed before ; and 

 that the nests were deposited at the inner end, and had been 

 occupied by broods in former summers, but no torpid birds were 

 to be found. The same search was made many years ago with 

 as little success." March 2, 1793, Mr. White adds, " a single 

 sand-martin was seen hovering and playing round the sandpit 

 at Short-heath, where they abound in summer. April 9, 1793, a 

 sober herd assures me that this day he saw several on West Hanger 

 common, between Hadleigh and Frensham, several sand-martins 

 playing in and out and hanging before some nestholes where the 

 birds nestle. 



" This incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of 

 hirundo is to be seen the first of any, and gives reason to sup- 

 pose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are 

 secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of these abrupt cliffs. 

 The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that 

 these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, 

 through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts ; but it is 

 easy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been 

 awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrcc 

 where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a 

 torpid state, and in the profoundest slumbers. 



" There is a large pond at West Hanger which induces 

 these sand-martins to frequent the district ; for I have ever 

 remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or 

 lakes." 



A year later, he says, " During the severe winds that often 

 prevail late in the spring, it is not easy to say how the hirundines 

 subsist : for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever seen, 

 nor do any insects appear for their support. That they can re- 

 tire to rest and sleep away these uncomfortable periods as bats 

 do, is a matter rather suspected than proved ; or do they not 

 rather spend their time in deep and sheltered vales near 



