1G6 NATURAL HISTORY 



whose back and wings are very black ; while the rump of the 

 martin is milk-white, it's back and wings blue, and all it's 

 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 ^Eneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a 

 bird that is somewhat loquacious. g 



We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise 

 the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764 ; which 

 was a remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land- 

 springs, which we call lavants, break out much on the downs 

 of Sussex ) Hampshire and Wiltshire. The country people say 

 when the lavants rise corn will always be dear ; meaning that 

 when the earth is so glutted with water as to send forth 

 springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must 

 be drowned; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven 

 years past. For land-springs have never obtained more since 

 the memory of man than during that period ; nor has there 

 been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of grain, considering 

 the great improvements of modern husbandry. Such a run of 

 wet seasons a century or two ago would, I am persuaded, 

 have occasioned a famine. Therefore pamphlets and news- 

 paper letters, that talk of combinations, tend to inflame and 

 mislead; since we must not expect plenty till Providence 

 sends us more favourable seasons. 



The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the 

 county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad: 

 and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden 

 vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly ; 

 and the turnips rot very fast. 



I am, &c. 



g " Nigra velut magnas doiuini cuin divitis sedes 

 " Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirimdo, 

 " Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 

 " Et nunc porticibus vacuis, mine humida circum 



" Stagna sonat. " 



. xii. 473-477! 



