PREFACE. 239 



explication fccms to me extremely forced, and 

 every thing is much better accounted for by fup- 

 poling, that at Dodona natural augury was firft 

 changed into religious augury •, for there the oaks 

 alio prophefied •, which plainly fhews the firil 

 flate of religious augury, when it had not wholly 

 put ofi' its antlent form, but like the monfters in 

 Ovid's Metamorpholcs, tlill retained enough of it 

 to convince us v/hat it had once been. That 

 Dodona was one of the firil places where augury 

 was pradlifed, is highly probable ; for it i' 

 mentioned by Homer as an oracle of eftablifhed 

 reputation at the time of the Trojan war : now 

 Pliny tells us, that Tirefias invented augury and 

 arufpicy •, and that he was reputed an augur ap- 

 pears by Sophocles in the CEdipus Tyrannus, 

 where he is introduced faying thus to Tirefias, 

 ' If you have received any information concern- 



* ing the death of Laius from the birds, or by 



* other means, do not envy it us.' Tirefias there- 

 fore, according to Sophocles, lived in the time of 

 Laius ; and Laius, according to Sir Ifaac New- 

 ton, lived not 80 years before the taking of 

 Troy. 



I will here fubjoin an account of what has 

 been obferved about the dilappearance of birds, 

 which will ferve to confirm v/hat i faid above con- 

 cerning the effed, which that phsenomenon might 

 not improbably have on the minds of men -, and 

 give room for the fuperftitious impoflures that 

 arofe from thence. Ariflotle has a chapter on 

 that fubjed -, wherein he fays, ' that many birds, 

 *" and not a few, as fome imagine, hide themfelves 



* in holes •,' he then enumerates the fwallow^ the 

 k'iti\ the thrujh^ the fiarling^ the owl^ the crane^ 



2 the 



