310 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 grassplots with a candle ; 

 are hermaphrodites, and very prolific. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXVI 1 . 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR, Si I. ll<> II M , NOV. 22, 1777. 



You cannot but remember, that the 26th and 27th of 

 last March were very hot days ; so sultry that every- 

 body complained and were restless under those sensa- 

 tions 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 66 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 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 swal- 

 lows were seen no more until the 10th of April, when, 

 the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began 

 to prevail. 



1 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 Sel- 

 borne, Hampshire." E. T. B. 



