78 NATURAL HISTORY 



Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty 

 years, says, in a late letter, that more has fallen this year 

 than in any he ever attended to ; though, from July, 1763, 

 to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of 

 this year. 



LETTER XXIII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, Feb. 28, 1769. 



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 looso in Pembroke 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 anything 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 anything like actual migration, it was last 

 Michaelmas- day. I was travelling, and out early in the 

 morning : at first there was a vast fog ; but by the time 



