Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/238

 rrington

Selborne, Nov. 22, 1777.

Dear Sir,

You cannot but remember that the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of last March were very hot days; so sultry that everybody complained and were restless under those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer coincidences; for on those two days the thermometer rose to sixty- six in the shade; many species of insects revived and came forth; some bees swarmed in this neighbourhood; the old tortoise, near Lewes in Sussex, awakened and came forth out of its dormitory; and, what is most to my present purpose, many house-swallows appeared and were very alert in many places, and particularly at Cobham, in Surrey.

But as that short warm period was succeeded as well as preceded by harsh severe weather, with frequent frosts and ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen no more until the tenth of April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began to prevail.

Again; it appears by my journals for many years past, that house- martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of October; so that a person not very observant of such matters would conclude that they