LETTER XXII.

Selborne, January 2, 1769. DEAR SIR, AS to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the ground, in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties in the king. dom. We have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better appearance than dovecots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the Fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which present. ed themselves in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, 1 have reason to lament this want in my own country, for such objects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.

What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity. An ancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked, that "Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of ser. pents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind."*

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been procured for you in Devonshire, because it corroborates my discovery, which I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near Farnham, in Surrey. I am well acquainted with the south hams of Dev

* James chap. iii., 7.

onshire, and can suppose that district, from its southerly situation, to be a proper habitation for such animals in their best colours.

Since the ringousels of your vast mountains do certainly not forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those which visit this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, but driven from the more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable; and it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they come, and to inquire why they make so very short a stay.

In

your account of your error with regard to the two species of HERONS, you incidentally gave me

great entertainment in your description of the heronry at Cressi Hall, which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi Hall

is, and near what town it lies.* I have often thought that those vast extent of fens have never been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gentle. men, furnished with a good strength of waterspaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly find more species.

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that of the caprimulgus (the GOAT-SUCKER), as it is a wonderful and curious creature; but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour

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strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of its windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats purr. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage, on the side of a steep hill, where we drank tea, one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice, and began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes; and we were all struck with wonder to find that the organs of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times; and I have observed that to happen when they have been pursuing each other through the boughs of a tree.

It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have procured, should prove a new one, since five species have been found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a nondescript I saw but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of taking.

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Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. I am no angler myself; but inquiring of those that are what they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of, they replied, "Of the intestines of a silkworm."

Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may now and then, perhaps, be able to furnish you with a little informa

The vast rain ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty years, says in a late letter that more rain has fallen this year than in any he ever attended to; though from July, 1763, to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year.

LETTER XXIII.

Selborne, Feb. 2, 1769. DEAR SIR, IT is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know is, that when, some years ago, many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke College garden, in the University of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselves very well, but never increased.

I return you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall; but recollect, not without regret, that in June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity was just at hand. Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that contains such a quantity of herons' nests, and whether the heronry consists of a whole grove or wood, or only of a few trees.

It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the caprimulgus; all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters sitting as well as flying, and therefore the noise was voluntary and