50 
NATURAL HISTOUY OP SELBOHNE. 
notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to watch them 
most narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the 
dead of the winter. When I have obtained information with respect to 
this circumstance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew ; 
which I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very 
near the truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, 
and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions 
of these birds ; and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the 
/ Katuralist's Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expect 
' that he will be very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as 
you observe, that a bird so common with us should never straggle 
to vou. 
And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, an 
anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last 
at his house; which was that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws 
(corvi moneduloe) build every year in the rabbit-burrows 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 pufiins) 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, !N'ovember 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 reserv^e 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 
anything from common report, especially in print, without expressing 
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 curious to remark whether they will call on us 
at their return in the spring, as they did last year. 
I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology. If fortune 
had settled me near the sea-side, or near some great river, my natural 
propensity would soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted 
