SONGS. 309 



When grave philosophers and orators seem thus 

 to be agreed, the authority of poets may be con- 

 sidered of less weight ; yet it has appeared to us not 

 a little remarkable, that Homer, though he mentions 

 their noise, when " flying round the springs of Cays- 

 ter, clangingly on sounding pinions*/' makes no allu- 

 sion to their singing, though Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, 

 Propertius, Silius Italicus, Claudian, and the rest of 

 the Latin poets, in manifestly copying this very pas- 

 sage of Homer, render his expressive word " clang- 

 ingly '* (K\ayyrjcov) by "tuneful," "melodious," 

 44 canorous," "musical," "plaintive," and similar 

 epithets. 



It might have been supposed that naturalists 

 would have been contented to adhere to the decision 

 of Pliny, who says, " Some affirm that swans sing 

 lamentably a little before death, but untruely, I sup- 

 pose, for experience in many has shown the con- 

 trary f." Yet this has not been the case, for some of 

 them enter into the discussion with great minuteness. 

 ./Elian, indeed, appears to waver in his opinion ac- 

 cording to the book he last read, in one place appear- 

 ing to deny it, because nobody had heard swans 

 sing J, and in another agreeing with Aristotle and 

 HecataBus. Oppian, again, who is very copious 

 in his accounts of the songs of birds, says, " They 

 sing at the dawn before the rising of the sun, as if 

 to be heard more clearly through the still air. They 

 also sing on the sea beach, unless prevented by the 

 sound of storms and boisterous weather, which would 

 not permit them to enjoy the music of their own 

 songs. Even in old age, when about to die, they do 

 not forget their songs, though these are then more 

 feeble than in youth, because they cannot so well 

 erect their necks and expand their wings. They are 



* Iliad, /3. f Hist. Nat. x. 23. 



J Hist. Var. i. De Anim, xx. 30, and xi. 1. 



