Letter XXII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, July 2, 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 country.
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 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 naturalist, has well
remarked that 'Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents,
and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of
mankind.' *
(* James, chap. iii. 7.)

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been