THE NATURAL HISTORY 



[LETT. 



Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to 

 support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain ; but then 

 the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as 

 another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. The late 

 writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of 

 those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from 

 the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe ; and then 

 break down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But 

 this is making use of a violent piece of machinery : it is a diffi- 

 culty worthy of the interposition of a god ! " Incredulus odi." 

 " I feel disgusted and disbelieving." 



THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK. 



-" eqnidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 



Ingenium." 1 VIRG. Georg. i. 415, 416. 



WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam, 



What time the May-fly haunts the pool or stream ; 



When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, 



What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed : 



Then be the time to steal adown the vale, 



And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale ; 



To hear the clamorous curlew 2 call his mate, 



Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 



To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning 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 ; 



Whence your return, by snch nice instinct led, 



When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head I 



Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride. 



The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide ! 



While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day 

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

 'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight, 

 And all the fading landscape sinks in night ; 

 To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by 

 With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket 3 cry : 



1 " I think their instinct is divinely bestowed." 



* Charadrius oedicnemus. 3 Gryllus campestris 





