24 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
These trees_, which were very sound and in high perfection, were winter- 
cut, viz., in February and March, before the bark would run. In old 
times the Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure 
from water-carriage, viz., from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames ; but 
now it is not half that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to 
the town of Godalming in the county of Surrey. 
LETTEE X* 
TO THE SAME. 
August Uh, 1767. 
It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose 
studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge ; so 
that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my 
attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of informatioa to 
which I have been attached from my childhood. / 
As to swallows {hirundines rusticce) being found in a torpid Mate 
during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I 
never heard any such account worth attending to. But a clergyman, 
of an inquisitive turn, assures me, that when he was a great boy, some 
workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in 
the spring, found two or three swifts {hirundines apodes) anung the 
rubbish, which were at first appearance dead, but on being carried 
towards the fire revived. He told me, that out of his great care to 
preserve them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung theia by the 
kitchen fire, where they were suffocated. 
* This letter is extremely interesting in many points, it is the earliest in date, 
and as such tends to confirm what we suggested in the note to p. 1, tlat the first 
letter of this series was written at a later date as introductory. Its early date 
also accounts for the apologetical expression in the first paragraph, md in it we 
find mentioned the two subjects for which White always entertained the greatest 
interest : these were migration and hybernation. 
White at the commencement of his meditations on this subject ivas inclined 
to the belief of a partial hybernation taking place among birds which Mr. 
Barrington, with whom he was also corresponding, tended to confiim. Neitlier 
could he get rid of the various accounts in circulation, in regard to swallows 
being found torpid, and of their retiring under water at stated periods. His 
candid mind would not allow him to credit these, but at the same ime he could 
not divest them of all foundation. Birds migrate, and the iistinct thus 
implanted may be looked upon generally as the provision to supplylfche wants of 
a peculiar season. All those summer visitants that have been fojnd after the 
usual period of their departure, have been detained by other causes than a will 
to remain, and as the season advanced and tlie supphes of food'and warmth 
failed, they sought retreats which by-and-by they were probaljly unable to 
leave. Some found in such places have been dead at the time or ha^ died almost 
immediately after being discovered, and a few have revived just acdording to the 
time they were concealed, or were able to withstand the cold or want if sustenance. 
Our winter visitants are in the same way occasionally detained ; a short time 
since we took a woodcock which had the tip of the wing slightly injured, it could 
perhaps fly about thirty yards. This bird could not have migrat(d, but it had 
not the scarcity of food to contend with that a summer visitant woild incur, and 
there is no doubt it would have lived through the season, as it 
healthy and in good condition. 
was perfectly 
/ 
