TOADS GREEN LIZARD. 81 



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 North- 

 amptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, 

 and the Fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the 

 number of spires which presented themselves in 

 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 man- 

 kind."* 



It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green 

 lizard has actually been procured for you in Devon- 

 shire, because it corroborates my discovery, which 

 I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a 

 sunny sand-bank near Farnham, in Surrey. I am 

 well acquainted with the south hams of Devonshire, 

 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 suspi- 

 cions 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 



* St. James, chap. iii. 7- 

 G 



