THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 
The pitying rocks, the groaning caves return 
Their sad complaints again, and seem to mourn : 
This all observe, and I myself have known 
Both rocks and hills return six words for one : 
The dancing words from hill to hill rebound, 
They all receive, and all restore the sound : 
The vulgar and the neighbours think, and tell, 
That there the Nymphs, and Fauns, and Satyrs dwell : 
And that their wanton sport, their loud delight, 
Breaks through the quiet silence of the night : 
Their music's softest airs fill all the plains, 
And mighty Pan delights the listening swains : 
The goat-faced Pan, whose flocks securely feed ; 
With long-hung lip he blows his oaken reed : 
The horned, the half-beast god, when brisk and gay, 
With pine-leaves crowned, provokes the swains to play." 
(Creech's Translatioyi.) 
Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778. 
LETTEE LXXXI. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAllRINGTON. 
Among the many singularities attending those amusing birds 
the swifts, I am now confirmed in tlie opinion that we have 
every year the same number of pairs invariably ; at least the 
result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for a long time 
past. The swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widely 
distributed over the village, that it is hardly possible to re-count 
them; while the swifts, though they do not all build in the 
church, yet so frequently haunt it, and play and rendezvous 
round it, that they are easily enumerated. The number that I 
constantly find are eight pairs ; about half of which reside in 
the church, and the rest build in some of the lowest and meanest 
thatched cottages. Now as these eight pairs, allowance being 
made for accidents, breed yearly eight pairs more, what becomes 
of this annual increase; and what determines every spring 
which pairs shall visit us, and reoccupy their ancient haunts ? 
