" This shows thee why, whilst men, through caves and groves 

 Call their lost friends, or mourn unhappy loves, 

 The pitying rocks, the groaning caves return 

 Their sad complaints again, and seem to mourn : 

 This all observe, and I myself have known 

 Both rocks and hills return six words for one : 

 The dancing words from hill to hill rebound, 

 They all receive, and all restore the sound : 

 The vulgar and the neighbours think, and tell, 

 That there the Nymphs, and Fauns, and Satyrs dwell : 

 And that their wanton sport, their loud delight. 

 Breaks through the quiet silence of the night : 

 Their music's softest airs fill all the plains, 

 And mighty Pan delights the list'ning swains : 

 The goat-faced Pan, whose flocks securely feed ; 

 With long-hung lip he blows his oaten reed : 

 The horned,- the half-beast god, when brisk and gay. 

 With pine-leaves crowned, provokes the swains to play." 



(Creech's Translation.) 

 Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778. 



LETTER LXXXI. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



Among the many singularities attending those 

 amusing birds the swifts, I am now confirmed in the 

 opinion that we have every year the same number 

 of pairs invariably ; at least the result of my inquiry 

 has been exactly the same for a long time past. The 

 swallows and martins are so numerous, and so wide- 

 ly distributed over the village, that it is hardly pos- 

 sible to re-count them ; while the swifts, though they 



do not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt 

 24 97 



