NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 91 



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. 



1 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 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 such subjects, yet there 

 is such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and 

 being deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from 

 common report, especially 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 which visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not 

 to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave 

 your rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most, is the 

 very short stay they make with us ; for in about three 

 weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark 

 whether they will call on us at their return in the spring, 

 as they did last year. 



[Let me congratulate you on the correspondence that 

 You have newly settled with your Languedoc Doctors ; 

 since you have always expressed an earnest desire of getting 

 correspondents somewhere in the South of Europe. If 

 these men are any thing of good Naturalists, they may be 

 sure to assist you with their informations & observations 

 with regard to migration ; & especially that of the soft- 



1 This sentence forms the postscript to the original letter. [R. B. S.] 



