to their latebrce. Nor make I the least doubt but 

 that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelm- 

 stone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of 

 the Sussex coast, I should by proper observations, 

 see swallows stirring at periods of the winter when 

 the noons were soft and inviting and the sun warm 

 and invigorating. And I am the more of this opin- 



the song which they sang may be seen in the works of Meursius, v, 3, p. 

 974, fol. ^ 



"HAfle, "HAfle, xeAtScbj/ koAos, 



"Clpas &yovcra, Koi Kahous 'Euiaurovs 



''Em yaffTepa Aeu/ca, k" eiri vwra fxeXaiva. 



" He comes ! He comes I who loves to bear 

 Soft sunny hours and seasons fair ; — 

 The swallow hither comes to rest 

 His sable wing and snowy breast." 



And alluding to this custom, Avienus (who may be considered only as a 

 very bad translator of an excellent poem, the " Periegesis " of Dionysius) 

 thus says, v. 705, — 



" Nam cum vere novo, tellus se dura relaxat, 

 Culminibusque cavis, blandum strepit ales hirundo 

 Gens devota choros agitat ! " 



" When in early spring the iron soil relaxes, comes the swallow chirp- 

 ing pleasantly from the hollow eaves, and the pious people begin to 

 dance." 



From a passage in the " Birds" of Aristophanes, we learn that among 

 the Greeks the crane pointed out the time of sotving ; the arrival of the 

 kite, the time of sheep-shearing ; and the swalloiv, the time to put on 

 sumf?ter-clothes. According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by 

 Theophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow 

 comes between the 28th of February and the I2th of March ; the kite 

 and nightingale appear between the nth and 26th of March ; the cuckoo 

 appears at the same time the young figs come out, thence his name. — 

 Stillingfleet's Tracts on Natural History. 



176 



