OF SELBOllNE. 295 



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 any thing 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, Rud Wiltshire. The coun- 

 try 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, 

 that the corn vales must be drowned ; and 

 so it has proved for these ten or eleven 

 years past. For land-springs have never 

 obtained more since the memory of man 

 than during that period ; nor has there been 

 known a greater scarcity of all sorts of 

 grain, considering the great improvements 



* " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes 

 " Pervolatj et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 

 " Pabula pan'a legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 

 *' Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 

 " Stagna sonat" 



