126 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 
LETTEE XIX. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Feb. lith, 1774. 
Dear Sir, — T received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to 
find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual 
candour : nor was I the less pleased to find that you made objections 
where you saw reason. 
As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of 
hirundo Yirgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients 
did not attend to specific differences like modern naturalists : yet 
somewhat may be gathered, enough to incline me to suppose that in 
the two passages quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow. 
In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is 
a great songster, and not the martin, which is rather a mute bird ; and 
when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum 
in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to 
do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the 
martin, since the former does frequently build within the roof against 
the rafters ; while the latter always, as far as I have been able to 
observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices. 
As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it ; yet the 
epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back and 
wings are very black ; while the rump of the martin is milk-white, its 
back and wings blue, and all its under part white as snow. Nor can 
the clumsy motions (comparatively 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 :J!lneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that 
is somewhat loquacious.* 
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 remark- 
able year for floods and high waters. The land-springs which we call 
lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire and 
Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants 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, that the corn-vales 
must be drowned ; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven years 
* " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis sedes 
Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 
Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 
Stagna sonat " 
Let. XIX., p. 173 orig. edit. 
" As the black swallow near the palace plies : 
O'er empty courts, and under arches flies ; 
Now hawks aloft, now skims along the flood, 
To furnish her loquacious nests with food." 
Dryd. Virg. ^n. xii. line 691. 
