WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Natural History of Selborne cover

The Natural History of Selborne

Chapter 106: Letter LI
By Gilbert White
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Environmental IssuesEssays, Letters & SpeechesNature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

The collection presents a series of dated letters and naturalistic notes from a local observer detailing the plants, birds, insects, weather, and seasonal cycles of a rural parish. Entries combine close field observations, phenological records, anecdotal reports of animal behavior, descriptions of landscapes and agricultural life, and occasional short poems. Observations are organized around months, species, and phenomena, often noting variation across years and linking weather patterns to biological events. The narrative emphasizes careful, patient observation and the relationship between human activity and the surrounding natural world.

Letter LI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 3, 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.