vember. The martins, redwings, and fieldfares were 

 flying in sight together ; an uncommon assemblage 

 of summer and winter birds I 



[It is not easy to discover whether White really 

 believes in the hybernation of swallows or not ; he 

 clings to the idea, and returns to it, although his 

 own arofuments seem to refute the notion almost as 

 completely as those of any recent author. Writing 

 twenty years later than the date of this letter, he 

 tells us, in his Observations on Nature, March 23, 

 1788, that a gentleman who was this week on a visit 

 at Waverly, took the opportunity of examining some 

 of the holes in the sand-bank with which that district 

 abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank 

 martins, and there they avowedly breed, he was in 

 hopes that they might have slept there also, and 

 that he might have surprised then! just as they were 

 waking from their winter slumbers. When we had 

 dug for some time," he says, we found the holes 

 were horizontal and serpentine, as I had observed 

 before; and that the nests were deposited at the 

 inner end, and had been occupied by broods in for- 

 mer summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. 

 The same search was made many years ago with as 

 little success." March 2, 1793, Mr. White adds, '' A 

 single sand-martin was seen hovering and playing 

 round the sandpit at Short-heath, where they abound 

 in summer. April 9, 1793, a sober herd assures me 

 that this day he saw several on West Hanger com- 



35 



