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growing more fevere, they have disappeared perhaps for a fort- 

 night or more, fo that I never have been able to procure any, 



though 



under thofe fenfations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual 

 approaches. 



This fudden fummer-like heat was attended by fummer coincidences; 

 for on thofe two days the thermometer rofe to 66 in the Qiade ; many 

 fpecies of infects revived and came forth ; fome bees fwarmed in this 

 neighbourhood ; the old tortoife near Lewes in Suflex awakened and 

 came forth out of his dormitory ; and, what is moft to my prefent pur- 

 pofe, many houfe-fwallows appeared, and were very alert in many 

 places, and particularly at Cobham in Surry. 



But as that fhort warm period was fucceeded, as well as preceded, 

 by harm fevere weather with frequent frofts and ice, and cutting winds, 

 the infedts withdrew, the tortoife retired again into the ground, and 

 the fwallows were feen no more until the ioth of April, when the rigour 

 of the fpring abated, and a fofter feafon began to obtain. 



Again: it appears by my journals for many years paft, that houfe- 

 martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of October ; fo that a per- 

 fon not very obfervant of fuch matters would conclude, that they had 

 taken their laft farewell ; but then it may be feen in my diaries alfo that 

 confiderable flocks difcover themfelves again in the fir ft week of No- 

 vember, and often on the 4th day of that month, only for one day ; and 

 that not as if in actual migration, but playing about at their leifure, 

 and feeding calmly as if no enterprize of moment at all agitated their 

 fpirits : and this was the cafe in the beginning of this very month ; for 

 on November the 4th more than twenty houfe -martins, which in ap- 

 pearance had all departed about the 7th of October, were feen again for 

 that one morning only fporting in my fields, and feafting on infects which 

 fwarmed in that fheltered diftridt. The preceding day was wet and 

 bluftering ; but the fourth was dark and mild and foft, the wind at 

 S. W. and the thermometer at 58 1, a pitch not common at that feafon 

 of the year. Moreover, it may not be amifs to add in this place, that 

 whenever the thermometer is above 50 the Bat comes flitting out in 

 every autumn and winter-month. 



From all thefe circumftances laid together it is obvious, that torpid in- 

 fects, reptiles, and quadrupeds, are awakened from their profoundeft 

 fiumbers by a little untimely warmth : and therefore, that nothing fo 

 much promotes this death-like ftupor as a defect of heat. And farther 

 it is reafonable to fuppofe, that two whole fpecies, or at leaf! many in- 

 dividuals 



