162 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT 
clumsy) of the martin well represent the sudden and artful 
evolutions and quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother's 
chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged ^Eneas. 
The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat 
loquacious.^ 
Nij^ra veliit iiiagiias doiiiini cum diviti.s aides 
Pervolat, et peniiis alta atria lustrat liimndo, 
• Palmla parva legens, nidisqiie locpiacibiis escas : 
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc liumida circum 
Stagna sonat." — (Virg. JEn. xii. 473—477.) 
We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise 
the springs to a pitch beyond anything since 1764; which was 
a remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land-springs, 
which we call levants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, 
Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the 
levants rise corn will always be dear ; meaning that when the 
earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the 
downs and uplands, the corn-vales must be drowned ; and so 
it has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For land- 
springs liave never obtained more in the memory of man than 
during that period ; nor has there l)een known a greater scarcity 
of all so^'ts of grain, considering the great improvements of 
modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or 
two ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. 
Therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of com- 
binations, tend to inflame and mislead ; since we must not ex- 
pect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable seasons. 
The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the 
county of Eutland and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad : and 
our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissi- 
tudes from fierce frost to poui'ing rains, looks poorly ; and the 
tnrnips rot very fast. 
St^LBORNE, Fth. 14, 1774. 
1 " As when the black swallow flies through the great palace of some 
wealthy lord, sweeping with its wings through the lofty halls, 23icking up 
tiny scraps of food for its chirping nestlings, at one time twittering in the 
empty porches, and at another round the watery ponds." 
