171 
My old tortoise lies under my laurel-hedge, & seems as yet to 
bo sunk in profound slumbers. 7 You surprise me, when You men- 
tion y r - age : y r - neat hand, & accurate language would make one 
suppose you were not 50. I remain, with true esteem, 
Y r most obliged servant, 
Gil. White. 
When Mr. Townsend avers that the Nightingales at Valez sing 
the winter thro’, I should conclude that he took up that notion on 
nicer report; because I had a brother who lived 18 years at Gib- 
raltar, & who lias written an accurate Nat. Hist, of that rock, 
& it’s environs. Now ho says, that Nightingales leave Andalusia 
as regularly towards autumn as other Summer birds of passage. A 
pair always breeds in the Govcrn r '*- garden at the Convent. This 
Hist, has never been published, & probably now never will, 
bocauso the poor author has been dead some years. There is in his 
journals such ocular demonstration of swallow emigration to, & 
from Barbary at Spring, and fall, as, I know, would delight you 
much. There is an Hirundo hiberna, that comes to Gibraltar in 
Oct r - & departs in March ; & abounds in & about the Garrison 
the winter thro’. 8 
LETTER XII. 
[Marsham to White.] 
Stratton : July 14. 92. 
My dear Sir, 
After many attempts on my part, at length our 
inveterate enemy, Madam Procrastination, has permitted me to offer 
my thanks to you for your very pleasing letter of the 20 th - of 
March. As one of 85 years i acknowledge her haggard form ; 
7 See antea p. 163, note 6. — J. E. II. 
8 See Letter XXXII. to Pennant, where White identifies his brother’s bird, 
and correctly so, with the Hirundo rupestris of Scopoli. It is again mentioned 
by him in the 15th letter of the present* series. — J. E. II. 
