P R E F A C E. 
2 35 
cording to certain calendar days, but according 
to a hitherto unobferved calendar, which varies 
feveral weeks in different years. I do not abfo- 
lutely afifert, that we can come to make ufe of 
fuch a calendar, but i defire that others will not 
affert the contrary at prefent, but leave this af- 
fair to be decided by the only proper way, which 
certainly muft be experience. 
We know from Hefiod, that hufbandry was in 
part regulated by the blowing of plants, and the 
coming or going of birds *, -and moil probably it 
had been in ufe long before his time, as agrono- 
my was then in its infancy * ; but when artificial 
calendars came into vogue the natural calendar 
fee ms to have been totally negle£ted, for i find 
no traces of it after his time, whether for good 
and fufficient reafons i pretend not to determine. 
That it was laid afide before the time of Arifto- 
phanes we have a pofitive proof in his Aves, where 
he makes Piflhetairus fay, 6 Formerly the kite 
4 governed the Grecians, which according to the 
6 explication of the fcholiaft means, that formerly 
4 the appearance of the kite was looked on as a fign 
c of fpring. He fays afterwards, that the cuckow 
4 formerly governed all iEgyt and Phoenicia, be- 
4 caufe when that bird appeared they judged it 
4 was time for wheat and barley harveft.’ 
I fhall make no farther mention at prefent of 
the ufe of plants in directing the hufbandman, 
but take this opportunity of making a digreffion 
* .Hefiod him felf was one of the earlieft of the Greek aftro- 
nomers. He lived, according to Sir Ifaac Newton, about 70 
years after Chiron, who formed the conftellations for the ufe 
of the Argonauts ; and from Hefiod the grofs and coarfe me- 
thod of aitronomy was called the Hefiodean method. 
about 
