Oafs II. KINGFISHER. 191 



Perque dies placidos hiberno tempore feptem 

 Incubat hakyofie Tper.dentihns gequore nidis : 

 Turn via tuta maris ; ventos cuftod^t, et arcet 

 ^olus egreffu *. OwV, Met. lib. xi. 



In after times, thefe words exprcfied any feafon of 

 profperity : thefe were the Halcyon days of the poets ; 

 the brief tranquillity j t\iQ feptem pladdi dies of human 

 life. 



The poets alfo made it a bird of fong : Virgil ^ttm^ 

 to place it in the fame rank with the goldfinch ; 



Littoraque hakyonem refonant, & acanthida dumi. 



Georg. III. 3380 



And Silius Italictis celebrates its mufic, and its 

 floating neft : 



Cum fonat halcyone cantu, nidofque natantes 



Immota geltat fopitis fludibus unda. Lib. XIV. 275^ 



But we fufpeft that thefe writers have transferred 

 to our fpecies, the harmony that belongs to the njocd 

 alcedoofzht phijofopher, km w (xh ^d-iyyzreHj Ka,^t^a,vH7<x, 

 iTTi rcSv i'ovAK.m "f, which was vocal and perched upon reeds. 

 Arijlotle fays, it is the leil of the two, but that both 

 of them have a cyanean back J. Belon labors to 

 prove the vocal alcedo to be the roiijferolk, or the 

 greater reed fparrow y, a bird found in France and 

 fome other parts of Europe, and of a very fine note : 

 it is true that it is converfant among reeds, like the 



* Alcyone com^xeh''di. 

 Seven days fits brooding on her watery oefl 

 A wintry queen ; her iue at length is kind, 

 Calms every ftorm and hufhes every wind. Dryden^ 



t Biji. an. 892. 



J Nwroi- y.voivBov, the color of the cyanus, or lapis lazuli. 

 II Le RoulTerolle, Belon wo. 221. Le RoucheroUe, Brijfon a'v. ii. 

 218. Greater reed fparrow, Wil.orn. 143. Turdus arundinaceus, 

 Un'M'/p. 296, 



O 4 bir4 



