NATURAL HISTORY 
a French refugee^ to take two or three views of this extra- 
ordinary tree on folio paper, with an intent to have them 
engraved. Of this artist I have seen some performances, 
and think him capable of doing justice to the subject. These 
views my brother proposes to have engraved, and will probably 
send a set to you, who deserve so well of all lovers of trees, 
as you have made them so much your study, and have taught 
men so much how to cultivate and improve them I have 
told you, I believe, before, that the great Holt Oak has long 
been known in these parts by the name of the Grindstone Oak, 
because an implement of that sort was in old days set up 
.near it, while a great fall of timber was felled in its neigh- 
bourhood. 
After a mild, wet winter we have experienced a very harsh 
backward spring with nothing but N. and N.E. winds. All 
the Hirundines except the sand-martins were very tardy, 
and do not seem even yet to make any advances towards 
breeding. As to the sand-martins they were seen play- 
dug in and out of their holes in a sand-cliff as early as 
April 9th. Hence I am confirmed in what I have long 
suspected, that they are the most early species. I did not 
write the letter in the Gent. Mag.''^ against the tor- 
pidity of swallows, nor would it be consistent with what I 
have sometimes asserted so to do.^ As to your recent 
^ The letter here referred to is no doubt a letter which had then 
lately appeared in the " Gentleman's Magazine," dated Feb. 7th 1793, 
iind probably the reason why Marsh am attributed this to Gilbert White 
was that the writer had signed himself " A Parish Priest," and had 
stated that his house was " about thirty miles from the sea-coast of 
Hampshire." On the other hand it is evident that White disclaimed 
the authorship because the observations of the writer in regard to the 
supposed torpidity of Swallows were inconsistent with the views which 
he himself had expressed in his book. See Letters X. and XXXYIII., 
to Pe:mant (pp. 33, 115); and Letters IX. XIL and XVIH. to Daines 
Barrington (pp. 161, 171, 191). 
Who then was the writer of this letter ? Not Dr. Stephen Hales, ff)r 
although at one time he resided about the same distance as White did 
from the sea-coast of Hampshire, he died in 1761, or more than thirty 
years before the letter in question w^as dated. 
Apropos of letters in the "Gentleman's Magazine" attributed to 
