108 WHITE 



up an account of the animals in this neighborhood. Your 

 partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, that 

 I am able to do more than is in my power : for it is no small 

 undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to begin a natu- 

 ral history from his own autopsia ! Though there is endless 

 room for observation in the field of nature, which is bound- 

 less, yet investigation (where a man endeavors to be sure of 

 his facts) can make but slow progress; and all that one 

 could collect in many years would go into a very narrow 

 compass. 



Some extracts from your ingenious " Investigations of the 

 Difference between the Present Temperature of the Air in 

 Italy," etc., have fallen in my way, and gave me great satis- 

 faction : they have removed the objections that always arose 

 in my mind whenever I came to the passages which you quote. 

 Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic poem for 

 the region of Italy, could never think of describing freezing 

 rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently oc- 

 curred ! 



P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost. 



LETTER VI 



SELBORNE, May 2ist, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The severity and turbulence of last month so 

 interrupted the regular process of summer migration, that some 

 of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others 

 are apparently thinner than usual; as the whitethroat, the 

 blackcap, the redstart, the fly-catcher. I well remember that 

 after the very severe spring in the year 1 739-40, summer birds 

 of passage were very scarce. They come probably hither with 

 a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points; 

 but in that unfavorable year the winds blew the whole spring 

 and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet 

 amidst all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned 

 in my last, appeared this year as early as the nth April amidst 

 frost and snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. 



