SELBORNE, _Feb._ 14_th_, 1774.
Dear Sir,--I received your favour of the 8th, 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 Virgil 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 AEneas. 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 remarkable 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 past. For land-springs have never obtained
more since the memory of man than during that period; nor has there been
known a greater scarcity of all sorts 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 combinations, tend to
inflame and mislead; since we must not expect plenty till Providence
sends us more favourable seasons.
The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of
Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad, and our wheat on the
ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to
pouring rains, looks poorly, and the turnips rot very fast.