OF SELBORNE 213 



^ere 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. The 

 preceding day was wet and blustering, but the fourth was- 

 dark and mild, and soft, the wind at south-west, and the 

 thermometer at 58'| ; a pitch not common at that season 

 of the year. Moreover, it may not be amiss to add in 

 this place, that whenever the thermometer is above 50 

 the bat comes flitting out in every autumnal and winter 

 month. 



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 this death-like stupor as a defect of heat. And 

 farther, it is reasonable to suppose that two whole species, 

 or at least many individuals of those two species, of 

 British hirundines, do never leave this island at all, but 

 partake of the same benumbed state : for we cannot 

 suppose that, after a month's absence, house-martins 

 can return from southern regions to appear for one 

 morning in November, or that house-swallows should 

 leave the districts of Africa to enjoy, in March, the 

 transient summer of a couple of days. 



I am, etc. 



