54 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an upland 

 district, my knowledge of fishes extends little farther than 

 to those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce. 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XXII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, Jan. 2, 1/69. 



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 ex- 

 cepted, 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 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 of things in the sea, is 

 tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind." 1 



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 



1 James, chap. iii. 7. 



