120 THE BIEDS OF VIKGIL. 



The general tenor of the whole passage of which these lines 

 are a fragment, as well as their original in the Diosemeia of 

 Aratus, points to the approach of ' hiems,' the stormy season, 

 as the event indicated ; the falling leaves dance in air, the 

 feathers of the moulting birds float on the water, but the 

 swallow is not yet gone. The deep Alpine valleys seethe with 

 swirling mist, which rises into gathering cloud, and soon 

 becomes stormy rain beating upon the plains, as we may see it 

 in any ' Loamshire ' of our own, that lies below the stony hills 

 of a wilder and wetter country-side. In this striking and truth- 

 ful passage, Virgil has not followed his model too closely, but 

 was evidently thinking of what he must often have witnessed 

 himself. 



The Stork is only mentioned by Virgil in a single passage : 



Cum Tere nibenti 

 Candida venit avis longis inviga colubris.^ 



Doubtless the bird arrived in great numbers in spring on the 

 Mantuan marshes, and found abundance of food there in the 

 way of frogs and snakes. Its snake-eating propensity was 

 considered so valuable in Thessaly, that the bird was preserved 

 there by law, says Aristotle.'' But did it remain to breed in 

 Italy 1 It is remarkable that both Aristotle and Pliny have 

 very little to say of its habits, and hardly anything as to its 

 breeding; and if the Stork had been a bird familiar to them, 

 they could hardly have failed to give it a prominent place in 



' in blushing spring 

 Comes the white bird long-bodied snakes abhor. 

 ' MirdbiUa 23. 



