mud in the bottoms of streams and ponds, but he 

 could not gather convincing proof. It was not 

 enough that a few belated specimens were seen in 

 the fall lingering about such localities, or again hov- 

 ering over them early in spring ; or that some old 

 grandfather had seen a man who had taken live 

 swallows out of the mud. Produce the man and let 

 us cross-question him — that was White's attitude. 

 Dr. Johnson said confidently that swallows did thus 

 pass the winter in the mud conglobulated into a 

 ball," but Johnson had that literary cast of mind that 

 prefers a picturesque statement to the exact fact. 

 White was led astray by no literary ambition. His 

 interest in the life of nature was truly a scientific 

 one ; he must know the fact first, and then give 

 it to the humanities. How true it is in science, in 

 literature, in life, that any secondary motives vitiate 

 the result ! Seek ye the kingdom of truth first and 

 all things shall be added. 



But White seems finally to have persuaded him- 

 self that at least a few swallows passed the winter in 

 England in a torpid state — if not in the bottom of 

 streams or ponds, then in holes in their banks. He 

 reasoned from analogy, though he had expressed his 

 distrust of the mode of reasoning. If bats, insects, 

 toads, turtles, and other creatures can thus pass 

 the winter, why not swallows? On many different 

 occasions of a mild day late in the fall, and early 

 in the spring, he saw house-martins flying about ; on 



xii 



