OF SELBORNE 21 



five of these people his lordship has served with actions. These 

 trees, which were very sound, and in high perfection, were 

 winter-cut, viz. in February and March, before the bark would 

 run. In old times The Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, 

 computed measure, from water-carriage, vis. from the town of 

 Chertsey, on the Thames ; but now it is not half that distance, 

 since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming in 

 the county of Surrey. 



LETTER X. 1 



TO THE SAME. 



August 4, 1767. 



IT has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours 

 whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural 

 knowledge : so that, for want of a companion to quicken my 

 industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender 

 progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached 

 from my childhood. 



As to swallows (hirundines rustics) being found in a torpid state 

 during the winter in the isle of Wight, or any part of this country, 

 I never heard any such account worth attending to. But a 

 clergyman, of an inquisitive turn, assures me, that, when he was 

 a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of 

 a church tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts 

 (hirundines apodes)' 2 among the rubbish, which were, at first 

 appearance, dead ; but, on being carried toward the fire, revived. 



1 [The original of this letter, the first ever written to Pennant by Gilbert White, 

 commences with the following passage, omitted in the copy as sent to the 

 printer : 



" Nothing but the obliging notice which you were so kind as to take of my 

 trifling observations in the natural way when I was in town in the spring, and 

 your repeated mention of me in some late letters to my brother, could have 

 emboldened me to enter into a correspondence with you, in which, though my 

 vanity cannot suggest to me that I shall send any information worthy your 

 attention, yet the communication of my thoughts to a gentleman so distinguished 

 for these kinds of studies will unavoidably be attended with satisfaction and 

 improvement on my side." At this time so little was he acquainted with Pennant, 



that he did not know his Christian name, and the letter is addressed "To 



Pennant, Esq., at Downing, in Flintshire, North Wales. "Bell. ] 



2 [It has been suggested that these supposed swifts were really bats, which is 

 not impossible. No swift has ever been known to pass the winter in this country.] 



