74 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



reason to lament this want in my own county ; 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 re- 

 marked 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 sandbank near Farnham, in Surrey. I am well acquainted 

 with the South Hams of Devonshire ; and can suppose that dis- 

 trict, from its southerly situation, 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, 



