i86 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXVI 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



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 sensations to which they had not been reconciled by 

 gradual approaches. 



This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many 

 summer coincidences; for on those two days the ther- 

 mometer 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 its dormitory ; and, what 

 is most to my present purpose, many house-swallows 

 appeared and were very alert in many places, and particu- 

 larly 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, 

 that house-martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of 

 October ; so that a person not very observant of such 

 matters would conclude that they had taken their last fare- 

 well : but then it may be seen in my diaries also that con- 

 siderable flocks have discovered themselves again in the first 

 week of November, and often on the fourth day of that month 

 only for one day ; and that not as if they were in actual 

 migration, but playing about at their leisure and feeding 

 calmly, as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated their 

 spirits. And this was the case in the beginning of this 



