SUMMER E\i:?^IXG WALK. 91 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER EVENING WALK 



equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 



Ingenium. Virg. Oeorg. 



The instructive arts that in their labours shine, 

 I deem inspired by energy divine. 



"When day declining sheds a milder gleam, 



"WTiat time the May-fly* haunts the pool or stream ; 



When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, 



WTiat time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; 



Then be the time to steal ado\Mi the vale, 



And listen to the vagrant cuckoo' sf tale ; 



To hear the clamorous curlew [j; call his mate. 



Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 



To see the swallow sweep the darkening plain, 



Belated, to support her infant train ; 



To mark the swift, in rapid giddy ring. 



Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing : 



Amusive birds ! say where your hid retreat, 



When the frost rages and the tempests beat ? 



WTience your return, by such nice instinct led, 



When Spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ? 



Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, 



The God of Nature is your secret guide ! 



While deepening shades obscure the face of day, 

 To yonder bench, leaf shelter' d, let us stray, 



* The angler's May-fly, the ephemera vulgata, Linn., comes forth from ita 

 fturelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the evening, and dies 

 about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly state in about five or 

 six hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of June, and con- 

 tinue in succession for near a fortnight. — See Swammerdam, Derham^ 

 Scopoli, &c. 



•j- Vagrant cuckoo ; so called, because, being tied down by no incubatic 

 •I attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders without control. 

 1 Charadrius oedicnemics 



