NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 183 



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 showing the least sensibility or resentment. 



Sometime 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 disappoint- 

 ment is the same ; because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up 

 for the purpose of shelter to the hop ground, entirely inter- 

 rupts 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 need- 

 ful 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 some- 

 times 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 



. "quae nee reticere loquenti, 

 Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo." 



I am, etc. 



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

 lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically 

 accounting for their causes from popular superstition : 



" Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 



