Class II. KINGFISHER. 



fecurity ; for which reafon they were filled, Haley-' 

 en days*, 



Perque dies placidos hiberno tempore feptem 

 Incubat Halcyone pendentlbus aequore nidis : 

 Turn via tuta maris : ventos cuftodit, et arcet 

 i^olus egreflu. 0-oid, Met, lib. XI. 



Alcyone comprefs'd. 

 Seven days fits brooding on her watery neft 

 A wintry queen ; her fire at length is kind. 

 Calms every llorm and hulhes every wind. Dry den. 



In after times, thefe words exprefled any feafon 

 of profperity : thefe were the Halcyon days of the 

 poets ; the brief tranquillity \ the feptem placidi dies 

 of human life. 



The poets alfo made it a bird of fong : Virgil 

 feems to place it in the fame rank with the Linnet : 



Littoraque Haley onem refonant, & Acanthida dumi. 



Georg. III. '^'3^^, 



And Silius It aliens celebrates its mufic, and its float- 

 ing neft : 



Cum fonat Halcyone cantu, nidofque natantes 

 Immota geftat fopitis flu6tibus unda. 



Lil^, XIV. 275, 



But we fufped that thefe writers have transfer- 

 red to our fpecies, the harmony tiat belongs to 



* Arift, hift, an, 541. Plin. lib. X. c, 32. lib. xviii. c. 24* 

 A^xyov£<at r5/*ef aj of the former ; and dies halcyonides of the 

 latter, 



S 2 the 



251 



