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LETTER XXII. 

 To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



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 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 ap- 

 pearance than dove-cots. 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 from 

 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 m.ention 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 mankind " (James iii. 7). 



It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green 

 lizard has actually been procured for you in Devon- 



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