24 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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, viz., 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. 



LETTEE X.* 



TO THE SAME. 



AugvM 4th, 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 rusticce) 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] among the 

 rubbish, which were at first appearance dead, but on being carried 

 towards the fire revived. He told me, that out of his great care to 

 preserve them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung them by the 

 kitchen fire, where they were suffocated. 



* This letter is extremely interesting in many points, it is the earliest in date, 

 and as such tends to confirm what we suggested in the note to p. 1, that the first 

 letter of this series was written at a later date as introductory. Its early date 

 also accounts for the apologetical expression in the first paragraph, and in it we 

 find mentioned the two subjects for which White always entertained the greatest 

 interest : these were migration and hybemation. 



White at the commencement of his meditations on this subject was inclined 

 to the belief of a partial hybemation taking place among birds, which Mr. 

 Barrington, with whom he was also corresponding, tended to confirm. Neither 

 could he get rid of the various accounts in circulation, in regard to swallows 

 being found torpid, and of their retiring under water at stated periods. His 

 candid mind would not allow him to credit these, but at the same time he could 

 not divest them of all foundation. Birds migrate, and the instinct thus 

 implanted may be looked upon generally as the provision to supply the wants of 

 a peculiar season. All those summer visitants that have been found after the 

 usual period of their departure, have been detained by other causes than a will 

 to remain, and as the season advanced and the supplies of food and warmth 

 failed, they sought retreats which by-and-by they were probably unable to 

 leave. Some found in such places have been dead at the time or have died almost 

 immediately after being discovered, and a few have revived just according to the 

 time they were concealed, or were able to withstand the cold or want of sustenance. 

 Our winter visitants are in the same way occasionally detained; a short time 

 since we took a woodcock which had the tip of the wing slightly injured, it could 

 perhaps fly about thirty yards. This bird could not have migrated, but it had 

 not the scarcity of food to contend with that a summer visitant would incur, and 

 there is no doubt it would have lived through the season, as it was perfectly 

 healthy and in good condition. 



