THE ECHOES OF SELBORNE 93 



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 



70 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 re- 

 sponses or 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- 



so disturbed, and without showing the least sensibility 

 or resentment. 



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 an hill, with a like 

 rising opposite to it, at a few hundred yards' distance ; 

 and perhaps success might be the easier ensured, could 



90 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 compla- 

 cency and decent reserve more may be said than can 

 with truth of every individual of her sex. 



My friend who lives just beyond the top of the 



