The Natural History of Selborne 159 



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 themselves 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 can- 

 not 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 spelunca subitb commota Columba, 

 Cui domus, tt dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 

 Per fur in arva volans, plausumque ex t err it a pennis 

 Dat tecto ingentem max aere lapsa quieto, 

 Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas" 



" As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes, 

 Rous'd, 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. 



1 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. 



