OF SELRORNE. 75 



great river, my natural propensity would soon have urged 

 me to have made myself acquainted with their productions : 

 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 pro- 

 duce. 



LETTER XXII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIKE. 



SEABORNE, Jan. 2, 1769. 



S 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 hun- 

 dred pounds a year whose houses of worship make little 

 better appearance than dove-cots. 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 la- 

 ment 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 natu- 

 ralist, 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." 1 



It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has 

 actually been procured for you in Devonshire; because it 



1 James iii. 7. 



