NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
179 
Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually late : I 
have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with the weather 
convinces me more and more that they sleep in the winter. 
LETTEE LI. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Sejpt. 3rd, 1781. 
I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care and 
satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for the honourable 
mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I may 
deserve. 
In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the 
house-martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. I 
therefore determined to make some search about the south-east end of 
the hill, where I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable 
months of winter. But supposing that the examination would be 
made to the best advantage in the spring, and observing that no 
martins had appeared by the 11th of April last ; on that day I employed 
some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. 
The persons took pains, but without any success ; however, a remarkable 
incident occurred in the midst of our pursuit : while the labourers were 
at work a house-martin, the first that had been seen this year, came 
down the village in the sight of several people, and went at once into a 
nest, where it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses ; for 
some days after no martins were observed, not till the 16th of April, 
and then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this 
year. 
LETTEE LIL 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Sept. 9th, 1781. 
I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which 
furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since 
I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines. Our 
swifts, in general, withdrew this year about the first day of August, all 
save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single bird. 
The perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the strongest 
Mrs. "White, and a woodcut is given of it. Professor Bell, wliose authority regard- 
ing the testudinata is the best in this country, if not elsewhere, refers it to the, 
testudo marginata, a species not uncommon in Greece and the Mediterranean ; but 
Mr. Bennet, upon a careful examination and comparison of the shell of the 
Grecian species, thinks that he recognised distinctions that would entitle it to a 
separate name, and he has applied to it that of its owner. "We shall rejoice if this 
c,an be established, which we have not at present materials to prove or disprove, 
and would therefore leave it to Professor Bell. The vignette is from the figure 
of. the T. marginata in. Prop. Bell's Testudinata,. 
N 2 
