OF SEL BORNE. 59 
when I was laft at his houfe; which was that, in a warren joining 
to his outlet, many daws (corvi moneduU) build every year in the 
'rabbit-burrows under ground. The way he and his brothers ufed 
to take their nefts, while they were boys, was by liftening at the 
mouths of the holes ; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they 
twifted the nefl out with a forked ilick. Some water-fowls (viz. 
the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner ; but I fliould never 
•have fufpefted the daws of building in holes on the flat ground. 
Another very unlikely fpot is made ufe of by daws as a place to 
"breed in, and that is Stonebenge. Thefe birds depofit their nefts 
in the interftices between the upright and the impoft ftones of 
that amazing work of antiquity : which circuniftance alone 
fpeaks the prodigious height of the upright ftones, that they 
-fhould be tall enough to fecure thofe nefts from the annoyance of 
{hepherd-boys, who are always idling round that place. 
One of my neighbours laft Saturday, November the 26th, fiw 
a martin in a flieltered bottom : the fun ftione warm, and the 
bird was hawking briikly after flics. I am now perfedly fitisfied 
that they do not all leave this ifland in the winter. 
You judge very right, I think, in fpeaking with referve and 
■caution concerning the cures done by toads : for, let people ad- 
vance v/hat they will on fuch fubjecls, yet there is fuch a propen- 
fity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that one 
cannot fafely relate any thing from common report, efpccially in 
print, without expreiTmg fome degree of doubt and fufpicion. 
Your approbation, with regard to my new difcovery of the 
migration of the ring-oufel, gives me fatisfidlion ; and I find you 
concur with me in fufpefting that they are foreign birds which 
vifit us. You will be fure, I hope, not to omit to make inquiry 
"whether your ring-oufels leave your rocks in tlie autumn. What 
I 2 puzzles 
