LETTER XIX. 



To the same, 



SELBORNE, Feb. i$th, 1774. 



EAR SIR, I received your favour of the 

 eighth, and am pleased to find that you read 

 my little history of the swallow with your 

 usual candour ; nor was I the less pleased to 

 find that you made objections where you 

 saw reason. 



As to the quotations, it is difficult to say 

 precisely which species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the 

 lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to specific 

 differences like modern naturalists : yet somewhat may be 

 gathered, enough to incline me to suppose that in the two 

 passages quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow. 1 



In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, 

 who is a great songster, and not the martin, who is rather a 

 mute bird ; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be 

 heard. Besides, if tignum in that place signifies a rafter 

 rather than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it 



1 This dilettante question of the exact meaning of a classical passage is 

 very much in Daines Barrington's amateurish manner, and very little in 

 Gilbert White's. ED. 



