THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
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 sur- 
prised them just as they were waking from their winter sUmibers. 
" 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 former 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 
common, between Hadleigh and Erensham, several sand-martins 
playing in and out and hanging before some nestholes where the 
birds nestle. 
" This incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of 
Jiirundo is to be seen the first of any, and gives reason to sup- 
pose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are 
secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of these abrupt cliffs. 
The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that 
these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, 
through all these cutting winds and pinching fiosts ; but it is 
easy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been 
awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrce 
where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a 
torpid state, and in the profoundest slumbers. 
" There is a large pond at West Hanger which induces 
these sand-martins to frequent the district ; for I have ever 
remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or 
lakes." 
A year later, he says, During the severe winds that often 
prevail late in the spring, it is not easy to say how the hirundines 
subsist : for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever seen, 
nor do any insects appear for their support. That they can re- 
tire to rest and sleep away these uncomfortable periods as bats 
do, is a matter rather suspected than proved ; or do they not 
rather spend their time in deep and sheltered vales near 
