OF SELBORNE. 211 



clogs the sound ; and hot sunshine renders the air thin and 

 weak, and deprives it of all it's springiness ; and a ruffling 

 wind quite defeats tho whole. In a still, clear, dewy evening 

 the air is most elastic; and perhaps the later the hour the 

 more so. 



Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that 

 the poets have personified her; and in their hands she has 

 been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor need the 

 gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with such a pheno- 

 menon, since it may become the subject of philosophical or 

 mathematical inquiries. 



One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, 

 must at least have been harmless and inoffensive ; yet Virgil 

 advances a strange notion, that they are injurious to bees. 

 After enumerating some probable and reasonable annoyances, 

 such as prudent owners would wish far removed from their 

 bee-gardens, he adds 



" aut ubi concava pulsu 



" Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." 



This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by 

 the philosophers of these days; especially as they all now 

 seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of 

 hearing at all. But if it should be urged, that though they 

 cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of 

 sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these 

 impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I 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 or echoes. Besides, it does not appear from experi- 

 ment 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 

 undisturbed, and without shewing the least sensibility or 

 resentment. 



Some time since it's discovery this echo is become totally 



p2 



