146 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west ; 

 but the tenour of the weather for some time before had been 

 delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, 

 and from repeated accounts which I meet wrth, I am more and 

 more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not 

 depart from this island; but lay themselves up in holes and 

 caverns; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild 

 times, and then retire again to their latebrce. Nor make I the 

 least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelm- 

 stone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of the Sussex 

 coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows stirring at 

 periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, 

 and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the more of this 

 opinion from what I have remarked during some of our late 

 springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance 

 about the usual time, viz. the thirteenth or fourteenth of April, 

 yet meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering cold north- 

 east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several 

 days, till the weather gave them better encouragement.* 



LETTER XIII. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 

 DEAR SIR, April 12, 1772. 



WHILE I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the 

 village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of 

 writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the 

 old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground 

 in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on 

 just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground 

 with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; 

 but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding 

 the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an 

 animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copu- 

 lation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night 

 and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into 

 the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 



* There are numerous instances of swallows becoming torpid, but none of their strictly hyber- 

 nating, none of their being aroused from a dormant state by unusually warm weather in early 

 spring, which latter fact cannot be too much impressed on those who still advocate the theory of 

 the hybernation of a portion of these birds. Let it be remembered that the adults of one species 

 the chimney swallow), and the young of all, moult during the winter months. ED. 



