The Natural History of Selborne 233 



in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me 

 to do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not 

 the martin, since the former does frequently build within the roof 

 against the rafters ; while the latter always, as far as I have been able 

 to observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices. 



As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it ; yet the 

 epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back 

 and wings are very black ; while the rump of the martin is milk- 

 white, its back and wings blue, and all its under part white as snow. 

 Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin 

 well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns which 

 Juturna gave to her brother's chariot, so as to elude the eager pur- 

 suit of the enraged ^Eneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a 

 bird that is somewhat loquacious.* 



We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the 

 springs to a pitch beyond anything since 1764, which was a remark- 

 able year for floods and high waters. The land-springs which we call 

 lavants, 1 break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and 

 Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants rise corn will 

 always be dear ; meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water 

 as to send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn-vales 

 must be drowned ; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven years 

 past. For land-springs have never obtained more since the memory 

 of man than during that period ; nor has there been known a greater 

 scarcity of all sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of 

 modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two ago 

 would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore pam- 

 phlets and newspaper-letters, that talk of combinations, tend to inflame 

 and mislead ; since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends 

 us more favourable seasons. 



* "Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis <edes 

 Pervo/at, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo^ 

 Pabula parva /egens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 

 Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 

 Stagna sonat." .... 

 1 Intermittent springs which burst forth only in very rainy seasons. ED. 



