VIRGIL'S BEASTS, BIRDS, AND BEES.
[To THE EDITOR OF TIM " SPICTATOM..1 Sut,—Some of the difficulty about birds in the third Georgia mentioned in your article of last week on Virgil's birds arises from a mistaken view as to the time of year in which the halcyon and the goldfinch are mentioned. It is not a warm evening in February. but in the jubilant summer (line 522). The goldfinch is abundant when the thistle is seeding. The word litora refers to the seashore, and not to the banks of a river. The poet mentions wells and water running down a trough from stagna—that is, a clear pool, but there is no river in his scenery here. The halcyon is more or leas a fanciful creature of the poet's, but it is essentially a sea bird, and has been identified by Mr. Rogers in his Preface to the Birds of A.ristophanes with the Mediterranean shearwater. Possibly that bird is vocal late in the evening when the tide
retires.—I am, Sir, &c., Awrittra H. BARTLETT. 86 Vanbrugh Park, Blackheath.
P.S.—Surely crate tenon in the first Georgic is tenacious marl and not chalk, "astringent" or otherwise.
[In the article under the above heading in our last issue the name of the writer was incorrectly given. It should have been "The Rev. T. F. Royds."—En. Spectator.]
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