SELBORNE, _Jan. 2nd_, 1769.
Dear Sir,--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 county. And
perhaps, Norfolk 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 hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship
make little better appearance than dovecots. 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 lament this want in my own county; 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 naturalist, 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 corroborates 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 driven from the
more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable;
and it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they
come, and to inquire why they make so very short a stay.
In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons,
you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the
heronry at Cressi Hall, which is a curiosity I never could manage to see.
Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride
half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your
next whose seat Cressi Hall is, and near what town it lies. I have often
thought that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently
explored. If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of
water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly
find more species.
There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that
of the _caprimulgus_ (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious
creature; but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as
it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note
sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour watched it as it sat
with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It
perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an
attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio "British
Zoology." This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at
the close of day--so exactly that I have known it strike up more than
once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we
can hear when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that
its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of
its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats purr. You will credit me, I
hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an
hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these
churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and
began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes: and we were
all struck with wonder to find that the organs of that little animal,
when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole building!
This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five
times; and I have observed that to happen when the cock has been pursuing
the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a tree.
It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have procured,
should prove a new one, since five species have been found in a
neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a
nondescript; I saw but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of
taking.
Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. I am no angler
myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of
their tackle to be made of?--they replied, "Of the intestines of a
silkworm."
Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I cannot say
that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may now and then perhaps
be able to furnish you with a little information.
The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and
since we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, who has measured the
rain for more than thirty years, says, in a late letter, that more has
fallen this year than in any he ever attended to; though from July, 1763,
to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year.