280 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



always the first spring bird of passage, & that it is heard 

 usually on March 20 : when behold, as I was writing this 

 very page, my servant looked in at the parlour door, & said 

 that a neighbour had heard the Chif-ehaf this morning ! ! 

 These are incidents that must make the most indifferent look 

 on the works of the Creation with wonder ! 



My old tortoise lies under my laurel-hedge, & seems as yet 

 to be sunk in profound slumbers. You surprise me, when 

 You mention y r age : y r neat hand, & accurate language 

 would make one suppose you were not 50. I remain, with 

 true esteem, 



Y r most obliged servant, 



GIL. WHITE. 



When Mr. Townsend avers that the Nightingales at Valez 

 sing the winter thro', I should conclude that he took up that 

 notion on meer report ; because I had a brother who lived 18 

 years at Gibraltar, & who has written an accurate Nat. Hist. 

 of that rock & it's environs. Now he says, that Nightingales 

 leave Andalusia as regularly towards autumn as other Summer 

 birds of passage. A pair always breeds in the Govern*' 8 

 garden at the Convent. This Hist, has never been published, 

 & probably now never will, because the poor author has been 

 dead some years. There is in his journals such ocular de- 

 monstration of swallow emigration to & from Barbary at 

 Spring and fall, as, I know, would delight you much. 

 There is an Hirundo hiberna, that comes to Gibraltar in Oct r , 

 & departs in March; and abounds in & about the Garrison 

 the winter thro'. 



