NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 225 



deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, 

 where the echoes are very strong ; for this village is another 

 Anathoth, a place of responses and echoes. Besides, it does not 

 appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable of being 

 affected by sounds ; for I have often tried my own with a large 

 speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such an 

 exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance of a 

 mile, and still these insects pursued their various employments un- 

 disturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or resentment. 



Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally silent, 

 though the object^ or hop-kiln, remains; nor is there any mystery 

 in this defect ; for the field between is planted as a hop-garden, 

 and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and lost among 

 the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the poles 

 are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same ; because 

 a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to 

 the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion 

 of the voice ; so that till those obstructions are removed no more 

 of its garrulity can be expected. 



Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his park or 

 outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at little or no 

 expense. For whenever he had occasion for a new barn, stable, 

 dog-kennel, or the like structure, it would be only needful to erect 

 this building on the gentle declivity of a hill, with a like rising 

 opposite to it, at a few hundred yards distance ; and perhaps 

 success might be the easier insured could some canal, lake, or 

 stream intervene. From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and 

 his friends might amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with 

 the prattle of this loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and 

 decent reserve more may be said than can with truth of every 

 individual of her sex ; since she is 



" quse nee reticere loquenti, 



Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo." 



\ am, etc. 

 P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following lovely 



