MIGRATION OP CEAlirBS. II9 



our tiny tisitors to England, could hardly escape the notice 

 even of men who knew nothing of scientific observation. Virgil 

 has given us a momentary glimpse of the Crane's migration in 

 spring; he is following in the tracks of Homer, but as a 

 Mantuan he must have seen the phenomenon himself also. 



Clamorem ad sidera toUunt 

 Dardanidae e muris ; spes addita Buacitat Iras ; 

 Tela manu jaciunt ; qualms sub nubibus atria 

 Strymoniae dant signa gruea, atque aethera tranant 

 Cum sonitu, fugiuntque Notoa clamors secundo.^ 



Here, as they fly before a southern wind, they are on their way 



to the north in the spring. But in another passage he seems 



rather to be thinking of autumn ; it is where he is telling the 



husbandman how to presage an approaching storm, such a 



storm as descends in autumn from the Alps upon the plains of 



Lombardy : — 



Nunquam imprudentibus imber 

 Obfuit ; an* ilium surgentem vaUibug imis- 

 Aeriae fugere grues, aut bucula coelum 

 Suspiciens patulis captavit naribus auras, 

 Aut arguta lacus oircumvolitavit hirundo.^ ^ 



' Tbe Dardanians on tbe walls raise a shout to the sky. Hope comes to 

 kindle wrath; they hurl their missiles strongly; even as under black 

 douds cranes from the Strymou utter their signal notes and sail clamour- 

 ing across the sky, and noisily stream down the gale. Aen. i. 262 foil. 

 ' Never at unawares did showers annoy; 

 Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes 

 Flee to the hills before it, or, with face 

 Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale 

 Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres 

 Shrill-twittering flits the swallow. Georff. i. 373. 



