180 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1770 



appearance unless you can swell it to somewhat of such 

 a bulk. 



What sorts of Land-tortoises do you find : when do they 

 come forth and when do they hide ? 



Have you no stone-curlews (Charadrius cedicnemus) ? they 

 certainly leave us for some of the dead months of winter. 



You will, I hope, settle that curious article concerning 

 your winter-martin.* In your letter of November last you 

 seemed to be puzzled, and say " that the winter-martins begin 

 to appear in a different dress : they are blacker on the back, 

 and whiter under the belly than last winter," and " that you 

 suspect they are the real summer-martins now undergoing 

 a change of colour, and possibly intending to winter here 

 in a browner habit." And yet in your letter of April 14th 

 you only say in general, " that you saw (March 23) swallows, 

 martins, and your brown winter-martins all flying together." 

 This most curious article of all your intelligence will not, 

 I hope, remain dubious and unsettled. 



Sure you must mistake when you say in your Journal, 

 April 15th, 1769, " that the vines, though their shoots are 

 but 6 or 8 inches long, have a good many grapes set." 

 Do you not mistake the buds of bloom for fruit? Vines 

 are late blowers in most climates : they shew the rudiments 

 of bloom with us in April, but do not blow 'til about 

 July 1, 'til the shoots are two or three feet long. When 

 in bloom they smell sweetly. 



Are not some of your foxes jackalls {Lupus aureus) ? 

 That animal wants to be better described. 



Don't be too hasty in pronouncing any species a non- 

 descript. Scopoli is very ingenious : he is publishing on 

 birds. 



♦ This was the Hirundo rupestris described by Scopoli (* Ann. I. Historico- 

 Naturalis,' p. 167) in the preceding year, as Gilbert White subsequently found. 

 It is the Cotile rupestris of modern ornithologists, the rock or crag martin. 

 —A. N. 



