NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 105 



chuse to maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every 

 one's hypothesis is each as good as another's, since they 

 are all founded on conjecture. The late writers of this 

 sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those 

 that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from 

 the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe; and 

 then break down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. 

 But this is making use of a violent piece of machinery : 

 it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god ! 

 " Incredulus odi." 



[I return you thanks for y r late letter of May 9 th : which 

 I shall endeavour to answer hereafter. In the meanwhile 

 hoping for the pleasure of hearing from you, 



I remain, 



Please to return Mr. Y r obedient servant, 



Barker's paper. GIL : WHITE.] 



To THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 

 THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK 



-equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 



Ingenium. VIRG. Georg. 



WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam, 



What time the may-fly 1 haunts the pool or stream ; 



When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, 



What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; 



Then be the time to steal adown the vale, 



And listen to the vagrant 2 cuckoo's tale ; 



To hear the clamorous 3 curlew call his mate, 



Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 



To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain 



Belated, to support her infant train ; 



1 The angler's may-fly, the ephemera vulgata LINN, comes forth from it's 

 aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the evening, and dies 

 about eleven at night, determining the date of it's fly state in about five or six 

 hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of June, and continue in suc- 

 cession for near a fortnight. See Sivammerdam, Derham, Scopoli, &c. [G. W.] 



2 Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incubation or 

 attendance about the nutrition of it's young, it wanders without control. [G. W.] 



3 Charadrius ccdicnemus. [G. W.] = (Edicnemus adicnemus(Uum.). [R. B. S.] 



O 



