266 NATURAL HISTORY 



inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum 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 cha- 

 riot, so as to elude the eSger pursuit of the enraged 

 ^Eneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird 

 that is somewhat loquacious 1 . 



"We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as 

 to raise the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 

 1764 ; which was a remarkable year for floods and high 

 waters. The land springs, which we call lavants, 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 



i Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes 

 Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 

 Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas: 

 Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 

 Stagna sonat." 



