STONEHENGE. 69 



to his outlet, many daws (corvi monedulce) build every year in the 

 rabbit-burrows under ground. The way he and his brother 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 nests out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls 

 (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that 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 



lehenge. 



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 26th, saw 

 a martin in a sheltered bottom : the sun shone warm, and the 

 bird was hawking briskly after flies. I am now perfectly satis- 

 fied 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 ad- 

 vance what they will on such subjects, yet there is such a pro- 

 pensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that 

 one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, espe- 

 cially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and 

 suspicion. 



Your approbation, with regard to my new discovery of the 

 migration of the ring-ousel, gives me satisfaction ; and I find 

 you concur with me in suspecting that they are foreign birds 



