530 
NATURAL HISTORY 
valuable friend, and in former days near neighbour during 
tlie summer months. For though his usual abode was at 
Teddington, yet did he for many years reside for about 
two months at his rectory of Faringdon, which is only two 
miles from hence ; and was well known to my grandfather 
and father, as well as to myself. If I might presume to 
say that what you see respecting the copulation of toads is, 
I think, a mistake, you will pardon my boldness ; because 
the amours carried on in pools and wet ditches in the 
spring time are performed by frogs, which are more black 
and bloated at that season than afterwards. As to toads, 
they seem to be more reserved in their intrigues.^ 
With regard to the annual increase of swallows, and that 
those that return bear no manner of proportion to those 
that depart it is a subject so. strange, that it will be best 
for me to say little. I suppose that nature, ever provident, 
intends the vast increase as a balance to some great devas- 
tations to which they may be liable either in their emigra- 
tions or winter retreats. Our swifts have been gone about 
a week !^ but the other hirundines have sent forth their first 
broods in vast abundance; and are now busied in the 
rearing of a second family. Myself and visitors have often 
paid due attention to the oak in the Holt, which ought 
1717. In the sixth letter of the present series it will be seen that 
allusion is made in some detail to the philosophical pursuits in which he 
was wont to engage. He died 4th Jan. 1761. 
The family of Hales was originally seated at Hales Place, in Halden, 
Kent, whence they were usually called " at-Hale." Nicholas at-Hale, 
or Hales, lived there at the latter end of the reign of Edward III. See 
Hasted's " History of Kent," vol. ii. p. 576 (1782), and vol. iii. p. 716, 
(1790).— Ed. 
^ See Letter XVH. to Pennant, and the notes thereto, p. 61. — Ed. 
2 This observation occurs, nearly in the same words, in Letter 
XXXIX. to Daines Barrington, p. 247. — Ed. 
^ The early retreat of the swift, " so many weeks before its con- 
geners," is a circumstance to which White has frequently alluded. See 
Letter XXVI. to Pennant, p. 90. Elsewhere he remarks, " they 
usually withdraw within the first week of August." See Letter 
XXXVII. to Pennant, p. 114.— Ed. 
