OF SELBORXE. 203 



in the spring ; but by no means lie torpid in the dead months ; 

 are out every mild night in the winter, as any person may be 

 convinced that will take the pains to examine his grass-plots 

 with a candle ; are hermaphrodites, and much addicted to 

 venery, and consequently very prolific. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXVI.* 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Nov. 22, 1777. 

 DEAR SIR, 



You cannot but remember that the twenty-sixth and twenty- 

 seventh of last March were very hot days ; so sultry that 

 every body complained and were restless under those sen- 

 sations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual 

 approaches. 



This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many sum- 

 mer 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 it's dormitory ; and, what is most to my present 

 purpose, many house-swallows appeared and were very alert 

 in many places, and particularly at Cobham, 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 tenth 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, 



* [To this letter Mr. Bennett has the following note. " This letter 

 was first printed in Barrington's ' Miscellanies ' (1781), p. 225. ' I shall 

 here,' he says, ' subjoin a letter which I have received from that ingenious 

 and observant naturalist, the Rev. Mr. White, of Selborne, Hampshire.' 

 E. T. B."] 



