76 LIZARDS. 



XXIII. 



IT is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard 

 and our green lizards may be specifically the same ; 

 all that I know is, that when, some years ago, 

 many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pem- 

 broke college garden, in the university of Oxford, 

 they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy 

 themselves very well, but never bred. Whether 

 this circumstance will prove any thing either way 

 I shall not pretend to say. 



I return you thanks for your account of Cressi- 

 hall ; but recollect, not without regret, that in 

 June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at 

 Spalding, without ever being told that such a 

 curiosity was just at hand. Pray send me word 

 in your next what sort of tree it is that contains 

 such a quantity of herons' nests; and whether 

 the heronry consist of a whole grove or wood, or 

 only of a few trees. 



It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so 

 well about the caprimulgus; all I contended for 

 was to prove that it often chatters sitting as well 

 as flying, and therefore the noise was voluntary, 

 and from organic impulse, and not from the 

 resistance of the air against the hollow of its 

 mouth and throat. 



If ever I saw any thing like actual migration, 

 it was last Michaelmas-day *. I was travelling, 



1 The subject of migration appears to have been a very 

 favourite one with our author, occupying the greater part 

 of many of his subsequent letters, and evidently often the 

 subject of his private thoughts. He sometimes seems 

 puzzled with regard to the possibility of many of the 

 migrating species being able to undergo the fatigue of long 

 or continued journeys ; and often wishes almost to believe, 



