* " 



LETTER XXXVI 1 

 TO THE SAME 



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 everybody complained and were restless 

 under those sensations to which they had not been recon- 

 ciled 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 it's 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. 



1 A paper " On the Torpidity of the Swallow Tribe, when they Disappear," 

 was published by Barrington in his " Miscellanies," and includes this letter, with 

 the following acknowledgment : " I shall here subjoin a letter which I received 

 from that ingenious and observant naturalist, the Rev. Mr. White, of Selborne, 



in Hampshire." [R. B. S.] 



117 



