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 kingdom. 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 presented themselves at every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I 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 serpents, 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 sand-bank near Farnham, in Surrey.t I am well acquainted with the south hams of Devonshire, and can suppose that district, from its southerly situation,

* James, chap. iii. 7.

Probably the sand-lizard, the Lacerta stirpium of Daudin. See next letter.-L. J.

to be a proper habitation for such animals in their best colours.

Since the ring-ousels 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 extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored. If half-a-dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels, 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 an half hour watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio British Zoology. This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the close of day; so exactly, that I have known it 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.t It appears to me past all doubt, that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers

* Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

The punctuality which attends the movements of all animals is very remarkable. Mr. White has noticed another instance, somewhat similar to the one here spoken of, in his "Observations in various branches in Natural History." He says, " in the dusk of the evening, when beetles begin to buzz, partridges begin to call; these two circumstances are exactly coincident."-L. J.

of the parts of its windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats pur. 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 drink 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 the cock has been pursuing the hen in a toying manner 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.

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 information.

The vast rain ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and since, we have had de

licate weather. Mr. Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty years, says, in a late letter, that more 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. 28, 1769.

Ir 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 bred. Whether this circumstance will prove anything either way I shall not pretend to say.

I return you thanks for your account of Cressihall; 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

* The Guernsey lizard is the Lacerta viridis of Daudin, and not known to be a native of this country. The green lizards spoken of by White in this letter, and in two former ones (Letter XVII. and XXII.) were probably specimens of the sand-lizard, (L. stirpium, D.) of rather brighter colouring than usual. For descriptions of this last species, which has been only of late years ascertained to be British, see Man. Brit. Vert. p. 291, and Bell's Brit. Rept. p. 17.-L. J.