386 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Here shall the primer sing his merry lay 

 While 'mid the vines he toils the livelong day ; 

 Here, too, the dove his tender mate shall woo, 

 Nor, from the elm, the turtle cease to coo. 



Eel. I. 57 — 60. Done into English by the Committee! 



And again : — 



A gift I've found for her my soul loves best, 

 "Where the wild pigeon builds her lofty nest. 



Eel. III. 68, 69. Do. by the Committee ! 



So, too, jolly old Anacreon, whose poety we commend as poe- 

 try, but whose moral influence was decidedly vinous and villa- 

 nous, says, in his exquisite " Ode to the Dove," (done so well 

 into English by Tom Moore that the committee venture not 

 upon it,) 



" Tell me, whither, sweetest dove, 

 Tell me, whither do you rove ? 

 Shedding through the air, in showers, 

 Essence of the balmiest flowers." 



And so in numberless other quotations might we show how 

 great a favorite in all time this charming tenant of the wood, the 

 field and the homestead, has continued to be. But, commend- 

 ing its culture as a source of innocent amusement, we pass on. 



There were mingled amongst the birds of which we have 

 spoken some animals which the committee thought a little out 

 of place, since, from the fact of their having four legs instead 

 of two, they were not supposed to be legitimate ornithological 

 specimens. These were rabbits, Guinea pigs, et id omne 

 genus — that is, " all that sort of thing." Especially was there 

 a bicipitous abomination, a 



" Monstrum informc, ingens, with a head twice as big as it should be, 



Virgil varied, 



or rather with two heads instead of one, rivalling in ugliness 

 that usurping King of England, wicked Richard III., who con- 

 fessed himself not to be 



" shaped for sportive tricks, 



Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ; 

 Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature; 

 So lame and so unfashionable 

 That dogs do bark at me." — Shakspcare. 



