104 



NATURAL 



HISTORY 



LETTER XXIL 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR; Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769. 



As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building 

 with us under the ground in rabbit-bur- 

 rows, you have, in part, hit upon the rea- 

 son ; for, in reality, there are hardly any 

 towers or steeples in all this country. And 

 perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and 

 fiussex 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 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 them- 

 selves in every point of view. As an ad- 

 mirer of prospects, I have reason to lament 



