The Natural History of Selborne 161 



sitting in his own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if he could 

 bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his 

 own doves to beat out into the woods and to support them- 

 selves by mast : the plan was plausible, but something always 

 interrupted the success; for though the birds were usually 

 hatched, and sometimes grew to half their size, yet none ever 

 arrived at maturity. I myself have seen these foundlings in 

 their nest displaying a strange ferocity of nature, so as scarcely 

 to bear to be looked at, and snapping with their bills by way 

 of menace. In short, they always died, perhaps for want of 

 proper sustenance : but the owner thought that by their fierce 

 and wild demeanour they frighted their foster-mothers, and 

 so were starved. 



Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes 

 a dove haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging 

 numbers, that I cannot refrain from quoting the passage : 

 and John Dryden has rendered it so happily in our language, 

 that without further excuse I shall add his translation also : 

 " Qualis speluncd subitb commota Columba, 

 Cut domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 

 Fertur in arva volans, plaustimque exterrita pennis 

 Dat tecto ingentem mox aere lapsa qttieto, 

 Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas" 



" A s when a dove her rocky hold forsakes, 

 Roused, in a fright her sounding -wings she shakes ; 

 The cavern rings with clattering : out she flies, 

 And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies', 

 At first she flutters : but at length she springs 

 To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings." ! 



I am, &c. 



i This is the last letter to Pennant, and probably one written after 

 publication of the series had been fully decided upon. It is obviously 

 artificial. The curious habit of formally quoting Latin verses in private 

 letters, and giving English translations of them even to readers equally 

 well acquainted with the original, is so common, however, in eighteenth- 

 century writers, that White may, perhaps, really have written to Pennant 

 in this quaint fashion. A letter was in those days regarded as a serious 

 piece of literary work, to be embellished with a neat patchwork of classical 

 quotation. ED. 



