NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 217 



This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted 

 by the philosophers of these days, especially as they all now 

 seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs 

 of hearing at all. But if it should be urged, that though 

 they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the reper- 

 cussions of sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet 

 that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I deny, 

 because bees in good summers thrive well in my outlet, 

 where the echoes are very strong ; for this village is another 

 Anathoth, a place of responses and echoes. Besides, it 

 does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way 

 capable of being affected by sounds ; for I have often tried 

 my own with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their 

 hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would have 

 hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these 

 insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and 

 without showing the least sensibility or resentment. 



Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally 

 silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains ; nor is there 

 any mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted 

 as a hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally 

 absorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of 

 the hops. And when the poles are removed in autumn the 

 disappointment is the same ; because a tall quick-set hedge, 

 nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to the hop-ground, 

 entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the 

 voice ; so that till those obstructions are removed no more 

 of its garrulity can be expected. 



Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his 

 park or outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at 

 little or no expense. For whenever he had occasion for a 

 new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or like structure, it would be 

 only needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity 



