126 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Feb. Uth, 1774. 



DEAR SIR, I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to 

 find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual 

 candour : nor was I the less pleased to find that you made objections 

 where you saw reason. 



As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of 

 hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients 

 did not attend to specific differences like modern naturalists : yet 

 somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline me to suppose that in 

 the two passages quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow. 



In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is 

 a great songster, and not the martin, which is rather a mute bird ; and 

 when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum 

 in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to 

 do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the 

 martin, since the former does frequently build within the roof against 

 the rafters ; while the latter always, as far as I have been able to 

 observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices. 



As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it ; yet the 

 epithet nigra speaks plainly in 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 (comparatively 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 JjJneas. 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 remark- 

 able year for floods and high waters. The land-springs which we call 

 lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire and 

 Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants 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 



* " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes 

 Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 

 Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 

 Et mine porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 



Stagna sonat " 



Let. XIX., p. 173 orig. edit. 



" As the black swallow near the palace plies : 

 O'er empty courts, and under arches flies ; 

 Now hawks aloft, now skims along the flood, 

 To furnish her loquacious nests with food. " 



DBYD. VIRG. Mn. xii. line 691. 



