OF SELBOENE. 83 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUinE, 

 THE 



NATURALIST'S SUMMER EVENING WALK. 



equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 



lugeniuni. VIRG. Georg. i. 415. 



HEN day declining sheds a milder gleam, 

 What time the May-fly 1 haunts the pool or 



stream ; 

 When the still owl skim*/ round the grassy 



mead, 



What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; 

 Then be the time to steal adown the vale, 

 And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's 2 tale ; 

 To hear the clamorous curlew 3 call his mate, 

 Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 

 To see the swallow sweep the darkening plain 

 Belated, to support her infant train ; 

 To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring 

 Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing: 

 Amusive birds ! say where your hid retreat 

 When the frost rages and the tempests beat ; 

 Whence your return, by such nice instinct led, 

 When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ? 



1 The angler's May-fly, the Ephemera vulgata, LINN, comes forth 

 from its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water, about six in the 

 evening, and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly 

 state in about five or six hours. They usually begin to appear about 

 the 4th of June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See 

 Svvammerdam, Derham, Scopoli, &c. C-. W. 



2 Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incu- 

 bation or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders with- 

 out control. G. W. 



3 The stone curlew, (Edicncmus crepitans. En. 



