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 (com- 

 paratively clumsy) of the martin well represent the 

 sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns which 

 Juturna gave to her brother's chariot, so as to elude 

 the eager pursuit of the enraged ^neas. The verb 

 sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat 

 loquacious.* 



We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so 

 as to raise the springs to a pitch beyond anything 

 since 1764; which was a remarkable year for floods 

 and high waters. The land-springs, which we call 

 levants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, 

 Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say 

 when the levants 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, the corn-vales must be drowned ; and so it 

 has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For 



* " As when the black swallow flies through the great palace of some 

 wealthy lord, sweeping with its wings through the lofty halls, picking up 

 tiny scraps of food for its chirping nestlings, at one time twittering in 

 the empty porches, and at another round the watery ponds." 



" 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 

 Stagnat sonat." — (Virg. ^n. xii. 473-477.) 

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