146 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west ; 
but the tenour of the weather for some time before had been 
delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, 
and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and 
more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not 
depart from this island; but lay themselves up in holes and 
caverns ; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild 
times, and then retire again to their latehrcB. Nor make I the 
least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelm- 
stone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of the Sussex 
coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows stirring at 
periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, 
and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the more of this 
opinion from what I have remarked daring some of our late 
springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance 
about the usual time, viz. the thirteenth or fourteenth of April, 
yet meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering cold north- 
east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several 
days, till the weather gave them better encouragement.* 
LETTER XIIL To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, April 12, 1772. 
While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the 
village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of 
writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the 
old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground 
in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on 
just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground 
with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; 
but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding 
the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an 
animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copu- 
lation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night 
and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into 
the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 
* There are numerous instatices ©f swallews becoming torpid, but none of their strictly hyber- 
nating, none of their being aroused from a dormant state by unusually warm v/eather in early . 
spring, which latter fact cannot be too much impressed on those who still advocate the theory of 
the hybernation of a portion of these birds» Let it be remembered that the adults of one species 
the chimney swallow), and the young of all, moult <iuring the winter months, — En, 
