''^feU.;V 



LETTER XIX. 



SELBORNE, />. 14^, 1774. 



AR 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 pre- 

 cisely 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 



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. 



