32 NATURAL HISTORY 



a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In 

 a still, clear, dewy evening, the air is most 

 elastic ; and perhaps the later the hour the 

 more so. 



Echo has always been so amusing to the 

 imagination, that the poets have personified 

 her ; and in their hands she has been the 

 occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor 

 need the gravest man be ashamed to appear 

 taken with such a phsenomenon, since it 

 may become the subject of philosophical 

 or mathematical inquiries. 



One should have imagined that echoes, 

 if not entertaining, must at least have been 

 harmless and inoffensive ; yet Virgil ad- 

 vances a strange notion, that they are in- 

 jurious to bees. After enumerating some 

 probable and reasonable annoyances, such 

 as prudent owners would wish far removed 

 from their bee-gardens, he adds 



aut iibi concava piilsu 



" Saxa sonant, vocisque ofFensa resultat imago." 



This wild and fanciful assertion will 

 hardly be admitted by the philosophers of 



