6o 
NATURAL HISTORY 
puzzles me moft, is the very fhort ftay they make with us ; for 
in about three weeks they are all gone. I fhall be very curious to 
remark whether they will call on us at their return in the fpring, 
as they did laft year. 
I want to be better informed with regard to idhyology. If 
fortune had fettled me near the fea-fide, or near fome great river, 
my natural propenfity would foon have urged me to have made 
myfelf acquainted with their produdlions : but as I have lived 
moftly in inland parts, and in an upland diftrid, my knowledge 
of fifhes extends little farther than to thofe common forts whicln. 
our brooks and lakes produce. 
I am, &:Co. 
LETTER XXII. 
TO THU SAME. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769. 
As to thd peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the 
ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the rea- 
fon ; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or fteeples in all 
this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, HampJInre and 
Spjfex are as meanly furnifhed with churches as almoft any counties 
in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundred 
pounds a year, whofe houfes of worfliip make little better appear- 
ance than dovecots. When I firft faw Northamptonjlnre, CambridgeJ]:ire 
and 
