64 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



under ground. The way he and his brothers used to 

 take their nests, while they were boys, was by listening 

 at the mouths of the holes ; and, if they heard the young 

 ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked stick. 

 Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that 

 manner ; but I should never have suspected the daws of 

 building in holes on the flat ground. 



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 pro- 

 digious 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. 



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 any thing 

 from common report, especially in print, without ex- 

 pressing 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 



