January 29th

1774

Selborne,Jan.29,1774
THE house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have re-marked trom many years ooservauon. rsoi uut nuw anu. mv,n a straggler is seen much earlier: and, in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and mill-ponds; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more in favour of hiding than migration; since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to it's hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two only to warmer latitudes.

Gilbert White
(Gilbert White (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) - letter to Daines Barrington. White was a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist, born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). )