OF SELBORNE 181 



another Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes. Besides, it does 

 not appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable of 

 being affected by sounds : for I have often tried my own with a 

 large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such 

 an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance 

 of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employ- 

 ments undisturbed, and without shewing the least sensibility or 

 resentment. 



Some time since it's discovery this echo is become totally 

 silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains : nor is there any 

 mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted as an 

 hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and 

 lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And 

 when the poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the 

 same ; because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose 

 of shelter to the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and 

 repercussion of the voice : so that till those obstructions are re- 

 moved no more of it's garrulity can be expected. 



Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his park 

 or outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at little or no 

 expense. For whenever he had occasion for a new bam, stable, 

 dog-kennel, or the like structure, it would be only needful to erect 

 this building on the gentle declivity of an hill, with a like rising 

 opposite to it, at a few hundred yards distance ; and perhaps 

 success might be the easier ensured could some canal, lake, or 

 stream, intervene. From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and 

 his friends might amuse themselves sometimes of ap evening with 

 the prattle of this loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and 

 detent reserve more may be said than can with truth of every 

 individual of her sex ; since she is — — — — 



" — — — — quae nee re^zVere loquenti, 



" Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo." ^ 



I am, &c. 



P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following 

 lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically 

 accounting for their causes from popular superstition : 



' ' Quae ben^ quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 "Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 

 " Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 



>[0v., Af«/., iii.,3S7-s8.] 



