JACK-DAWS. 79 



expect that he will be very exact in his dates. It 

 is very extraordinary, as you observe, that a bird so 

 common with us should never straggle to you.* 



And here will be the properest place to mention, 

 while I think of it, an anecdote which the above 

 mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at 

 his house ; which was, that in a warren joining to 

 his outlet, many daws (corvi monedulce) build every 

 year in the rabbit burrows under ground. The way 

 he and his brothers used to take their nests, while 

 they were boys, was by listening at the mouths of 

 the holes, and if they heard the young ones cry, 

 they twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some 

 water fowls (viz. the puffins) breed, I know, in this 

 manner ; but I should never have suspected the daws 

 of building in holes on the flat ground. 



Another very unlikely spot is made use of by 

 daws as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. 

 These birds deposit their nests in the interstices 

 between the upright and the impost stones of that 

 amazing work of antiquity ; which circumstance 

 alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright 

 stones, that they should be tall enough to secure 

 those nests from the annoyance of shepherd boys, 

 who are always idling round that place. 



One of my neighbours last Saturday, (November 

 the 26,) saw a martin in a sheltered bottom; the 

 sun shone warm, and the bird was hawking briskly 

 after flies. I am now perfectly satisfied that they 

 do not all leave this island in the winter. 



You judge very right, I think, in speaking with 

 reserve and caution concerning the cures done by 

 toads ; for, let people advance what they will on 



* This species is extremely local, being scarcely found out of 

 Hampshire, Norfolk, and one or two of the eastern counties of 

 England. W. J. 



