NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 169 
LAL <b io Re XX 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Fed. 14th, 1774. 
DEAR SIR,—I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased 
to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your 
usual candour; nor was I the less pleased to find that you made 
objections where you saw reason. 
As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species 
of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the 
ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern 
naturalists : yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline 
me to suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet had his 
eye on the swallow. 
In the first place the epithet garvrvuz/a suits the swallow well, who 
is a great songster, and not the martin, which is rather a mute 
bird ; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. 
Besides, if ¢¢guam in that place signifies a rafter rather than a 
beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be the swallow 
that is alluded to, and not the martin, since the former does 
frequently build within the roof against the rafters; while the 
latter always, as far as I have been able to observe, builds without 
the roof against eaves and cornices. 
As to the simile,too much stress must not be laid on it ; vet 
the epithet wzgva speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, 
whose back and wings are very black; while the rump of the 
martin is milk-white, its back and wings blue, and all its under 
part white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively 
clumsy) of the martin well represent the sudden and artful 
evolutions and quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother’s 
chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged A‘neas. 
