THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. » “820 
west ; but the tenor of the weather for some time before had 
been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this 
incident, and from repeated accounts which I met 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 hiding-places. 
Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, 
Seaford, Brighthelmstone, 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 are 
soft and inviting, and the sun warm and invigorating. And I 
am the more of this opinion from what I have remarked during 
some of our late springs, that though some swallows did make 
their appearance about the usual time, viz., the 13th or 14th of 
April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering cold 
northeast winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for 
several days, till the weather gave them better encouragement. 
Letrer XIII. 
April, rath, 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 1st 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 forefeet, 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 such an animal. Nothing can be more assiduous 
_ than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and 
