63 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
.[LETT. 
LETTEIl 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, AVe 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 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 mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my 
curiosity. An ancient autlior, though no naturalist, has well 
remarked that, " Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of ser- 
pents, 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 Devonshire ; because it corro- 
borates my discovery, which I made many years ago, of the 
same sort, on a sunny sandbank near Farnham in Surrey. I 
am well acquainted with the south hams of Devonshire ; and 
can suppose that district, from its southerly situation, to be a 
proper habitation for such animals in their best colours. 
Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not 
forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those which 
visit this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, 
but are driven from the more northern parts of Europe by the 
frosts, are still more reasonable ; and it will be worth your pains 
