222 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



a new barn, 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 an 



evening with the prattle of this loquacious nymph ; of 



whose complacency and decent reserve more may be said 



that can with truth of every individual of her sex ; since 



she is — 



. . . . " quae nee reticere loquenti, 

 Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis eeho." 



I am, etc. 



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 ben4 quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 

 Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 

 Palanteis eomites quoin monteis inter opacos 

 Quserimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 

 Sex etiam, aut septera loca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaeeres : ita eoUes coUibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Ha;c loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tencre 

 Finitimi flngunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocantl 

 Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, 

 Cliordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum : 

 Et genus agricolOm late sentiscere, quom Pan 

 Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans. 

 Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musara." 



Lucretius, Lib. iv 1. 576. 



