OF iSELBOBNE. 
75 
groat 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, ESQUIRE. 
Selboene, 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, 
I^orfolk 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. 
It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has 
actually been procured for you in Devonshire; because it 
James iii. 7. 
