120 NOTES TO THE 



White does not notice that his quotation is not in the least appli- 

 cable to an English swallow. What would ' Jeames ' and ' Blazes,' 

 or even the groom of the chamber, say if they saw a swallow in 

 the entrance hall of Buckingham Palace ? Or, locate our 

 swallow (say) at Blenheim. She ceuld but take a long flight 

 along the fa9ade of the edifice, and then fly off about a mile, to 

 the lakes or ponds. But Virgil is thinking of a Roman noble- 

 man's villa, such as is described (I may say photographed) by 

 Pliny the younger, in a celebrated letter, the villa at Como. 

 Here you have a number of detached buildings : a dining-room, 

 where people lie next the wall comfortably on sofas, while 

 the slaves bring them their meat and drink from the open 

 door; then the cnbicula, then a little shrubbery of myrtles, 

 then a cold bath, then some box-trees or planes, then a fish-pond, 

 then a porticus, a covered gallery somewhat like the cloisters at 

 Christ Church, or Magdalen, Oxford, or those at Hampton Court. 



" What swallow ever flew along the porticibns vacuis of an 

 English house? 



" Horace thus describes the use of the Pioman porticus : 



' Nulla decempedis 

 Metata privatis opacam 

 Porticus excipiebat Arcton.' 



and Juvenal writes : 



' Balnea sexcentis et pluris porticus, in qufi 

 Gestetur dominus, quoties pluit, anne serenum 

 Expectet, spargatque luto jumenta recenti ? 

 Hie potius, namque hie mundee nitet ungula mulre.' 



" As to the dining-room : 



o 



' Parte alia longis Numidarum fulta colnmnis, 

 Surgat, et algentem capiat cocnatio solem.' 



i.e., let it have a northern aspect. 



" It may be worth your while to point out in your note the 

 inapplicability of Virgil's simile to our architecture. 'Lustrat ' 

 is as well rendered by ' explores ' as by any other one English 

 word. The bird makes its way into every nook, crevice, and 

 cranny of the property, flying zig-zag round buildings, shrub- 

 beries, tall trees, and then flitting across fish-ponds, open 

 baths." &c. 



BRITISH MIGRATORY BIRDS IN AFRICA. Writing of the Oases 

 in the African Sahara, the Eev. II. B. Tristram states, in the 

 21ns (1851), p. 278) : " Here are the winter quarters of many 

 of our summer visitants. The chiff-chaff, willow-wren, and 

 wliitethroat hop on every twig in the gardens shadowed by the 



