PREFACE. 235 



cording to certain calendar days, but according 

 to a hitherto unobferved calendar, which varies 

 feveral weeks in different years. I do not abfo- 

 lutely affert, that we can come to make ufe of 

 fuch a calendar, but i deiire that others will not 

 aflert the contrary at prelenr, but leave this af- 

 fair to be decided by the only proper way, which 

 certainly mufl be experience. 



We know from Hefiod, that hufbandry was in 

 part regulated by the blowing of plants, and ihe 

 coming or going of birds •, and moil probably it 

 had been in ufe long before his time, as aftrono- 

 my was then in its infancy * •, but when artificial 

 calendars came into vogue the natural calendar 

 feems to have been totally negle6ted, for i find 

 no traces of it after his time, whether for good 

 and fufficient reafons i pretend not to determine. 

 That it was laid afide before the time of Arifto- 

 phanes we have a pofitive proof in his AveSy where 

 he makes Pifthetairus fay, ' Formerly the kite 



* governed the Graecians, which according to the 



* explication of the fcholiail means, that formerly 



* the appearance of the kite was looked on as a fign 



* of fpring. He fays afterwards, that the cuckow 



* formerly governed all iEgyt and Phoenicia, be- 



* caufe when that bird appeared they judged it 



* was time for wheat and barley harvefl.' 



I fliall make no farther mention at prefent of 

 the ufe of plants in dire6ting the hujfbandman, 

 but take this opportunity of making a digreffion 



* Hefiod himfelf was one of the earliefl of the Greek aftro- 

 nomers. He lived, according to Sir Ifaac Newton, about 70 

 years after Chiron, who formed the conftellations for the ufe 

 of the Argonauts ; and from Heiiod the grofs and coarfe me- 

 thod, of aftronomy was called the Hefiodean method. 



about 



