n8 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 loth 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 

 farewell ; but then it may be seen in my diaries also that 

 considerable 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 very month ; for on the fourth of November, more 

 than twenty house-martins, which, in appearance, had all 

 departed about the seventh of October, were seen again for 

 that one morning only sporting between my fields and the 

 Hanger, and feasting on insects which swarmed in that 

 sheltered district. 1 The preceding day was wet and bluster- 

 ing, but the fourth was dark, and mild, and soft, the wind 

 at south-west, and the thermometer at 58'J ; a pitch not 

 common at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not 

 be amiss to add in this place, that whenever the ther- 

 mometer is above 50, the bat comes flitting out in every 

 autumnal and winter-month. 2 



From all these circumstances, laid together, it is obvious 

 that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds, are awakened 

 from their profoundest slumbers by a little untimely 

 warmth ; and therefore that nothing so much promotes 



1 See Letter XXXVIII to Pennant (vol. i. p. 162). 



2 Professor Bell (ed. "Selborne," i. p. 204, note] says: "I have seen the 

 Pipistrelle, the commonest of our Bats, flying in every month of the year ; and 

 whenever Gnats are tempted to come forth, the Bat is sure to follow for a meal." 



