NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 223 



respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the 

 deception. 



This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would re- 

 peat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially if 

 quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of 



"Tityre, tu patulse recubans . . ." 



were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and there is 

 no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at midnight, when 

 the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or two 

 syllables more might have been obtained ; but the distance 

 rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient. 



Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we came 

 to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees of the same 

 number of syllables, 



"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens . . ." 



we could perceive a return but of four or five. 



All echoes have some one place to which they are returned 

 stronger and more distinct than to any other ; and that is always 

 the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercussion, 

 and is not too near, nor too far off. Buildings, or naked rocks, 

 re-echo much more articulately than hanging woods or vales ; 

 because in the latter the voice is as it were entangled, and 

 embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound. 



The true object of this echo, as we found by various experi- 

 ments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally-lane, which 

 measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves 

 twelve feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is one 

 particular spot in the king's field, in the path to Nore-hill, on the 

 very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart-way. In this 

 case there is no choice of distance; but the path, by mere con- 

 tingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the 

 ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires 

 or advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below the 

 object. 



We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exactness, and 



