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." (St James, chap. iii. 7.)

in December, 1826. All the toads in the small cells of compact sandstone were dead, and their bodies so much decayed as to prove that they had been dead for some months. The greater number of the toads in the larger cells of porous limestone were alive; but they were all a good deal emaciated, except two, which had increased in weight, the one from one thousand one hundred and eighty-five grains to one thousand two hundred and sixty-five, the other from nine hundred and eighty-eight to one thousand one hundred and sixteen. With regard to these two, Dr Buckland thinks they had both been nourished by insects, which had got into the one cell through a crack found in the glass cover, and into the other probably by some small aperture in the luting, which was not carefully examined. No insects were found in either cell, but an assemblage of insects was found on the outside of another glass, and a number within one of the cells whose cover was cracked, and where the animal was dead. Of the emaciated toads, one had diminished in weight from nine hundred and twenty-four grains to six hundred and ninetyeight, and one from nine hundred and thirty-six to six hundred and fiftytwo. "The results of the experiments," says Dr Buckland, "amount to this:- All the toads, both large and small, enclosed in the sandstone, and the small toads enclosed in the limestone also, were dead at the end of thirteen months. Before the expiration of the second year, all the large ones also were dead. These were examined several times, during the second year, through the glass covers of the cells, but without removing them to admit air. They appeared always awake, with their eyes open, and never in a state of torpor, their meagreness increasing at each interval, until at length they were found dead. Those which had gained an increase of weight at the end of the first year, and were then carefully closed up again, were emaciated and dead before the expiration of the second year." Four toads, enclosed in cavities cut in the trunk of an apple tree, and closed up by plugs so tightly as to exclude insects, and apparently air," were found dead at the end of a year.

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The phenomena, then, of live toads enclosed in rocks, he explains in this way. The young toad, as soon as it leaves its tadpole state, and emerges from the water, seeks shelter in holes and crevices of rocks and trees. One may thus enter a small opening in a rock, and when there find food, by catching the insects, which seek shelter in the same retreat; and its increase of size may prevent it from getting out again by the same opening. It is probable that there are some small apertures in all the stones in which toads are found, though they escape the notice of the workmen, who have no motive to induce them to make a narrow examination. In other cases, there may have been an opening, which had been closed up, after the animal was immured, by stalactitic incrustation. Deprived of food and air, it might fall into that state of torpor, or suspended animation, to which certain animals are subject in winter; but how long it might continue in this state is uncertain.

The Rev. George Young, in his Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast, second edition, 1828, mentions several recent instances of living toads having been found within solid blocks of sandstone. "We are the

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 sand-bank 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 ringousels 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 worthy your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they come, and to inquire why they make so 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 Čressi-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

more particular in recording these facts," he observes, " because some modern philosophers have attempted to explode such accounts as wholly fabulous." Mr Jesse informs us, that he knew a gentleman who put a toad into a small flower-pot, and secured it, so that no insect could penetrate it, and then buried it so deep in his garden that it was secured against the influence of frost. At the end of twenty years, he took it up, and found the toad increased in bulk, and healthy. ED.

* Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

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 pur. 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 manner 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 silk-worm."

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

little information.

a

The vast rain 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 rain 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.*

*At Joyeuse, in the department of the Ardèche, during October, 1827, thirty-six inches of rain in depth fell within eleven days; and, on the 9th of that month, twenty-nine inches and a half fell within the space of two hours. During this excessive fall of rain, the barometer remained nearly stationary, at two or three lines below the mean altitude, notwithstanding the continuance of the most violent thunder and lightning during the whole time.-ED.

LETTER XXIII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ

SELBORNE, February 28, 1769. DEAR SIR,- -It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know is, that when, some years ago, many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke college garden, in the university of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselves very well; but never bred. Whether this circumstance will prove any thing either way, I shall not pretend to say.

I return you thanks for your account of Cressi-hall; but recollect, not without regret, that in June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity was just at hand. Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that contains such a quantity of herons' nests; and whether the heronry consists of a whole grove, or wood, or only of a few trees.

It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the caprimulgus; all I contended for was, to prove that it often chatters sitting as well as flying, and therefore the noise was voluntary, and from organic impulse, and not from the resistance of the air against the hollow of its mouth and throat.*

*This is a common species in the United States of America, and is called by the natives whip-poor-will, from the similarity of his cry to these words. The following interesting account of their cry is given by Wilson: :-"Every morning and evening his shrill and rapid repetitions are heard from the adjoining woods; and, when two or more are calling out at the same time, as is often the case in the pairing season, and at no great distance from each other, the noise, mingling with the echoes from the mountains, is really surprising. Strangers, in parts of the country where these birds are numerous, find it almost impossible for some time to sleep; while, to those long acquainted with them, the sound often serves as a lullaby to assist their repose.

"These notes seem pretty plainly to articulate the words which have been generally applied to them, whip-poor-will, the first and last syllables being uttered with great emphasis, and the whole in about a second to each repetition; but when two or more males meet, their whip-poor-will altercations become much more rapid and incessant, as if each were straining to overpower or silence the other. When near, you often hear an introductory cluck between the notes. At these times, as well as at almost all others, they fly low, not more than a few feet from the surface, skimming about the house and before the door, alighting on the wood

If ever I saw any thing like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas-day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning. at first there was a vast fog, but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath, or common, and I could discern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers of swallows, hirundines rusticæ, clustering on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear and pleasant, they all were on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward, towards the sea: after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler.

I cannot agree with those persons that assert, that the swallow kind disappear some and some, gradually, as they come; for the bulk of them seem to withdraw at once; only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this island. Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a warm evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. For a very respectable gentleman assured me, that, as he was walking with some friends, under Merton-wall, on a remarkably hot noon, either in the last week in December, or the first week in January, he espied three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of the windows of that college. I have frequently remarked that swallows are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere: is it owing to the vast, massy buildings of that place, to the many waters round it, or to what else?

When I used to rise in a morning last autumn, and see the swallows and martens clustering on the chimneys and thatch of the neighbouring cottages, I could not help being touched with a secret delight, mixed with some degree of mortification : with delight, to observe with how much ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse towards migration, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great Creator; and with some degree of mortification, when I reflected that, after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions they do migrate; and are still farther embarrassed to find that some actually do not migrate at all.

pile, or settling on the roof. Towards midnight, they generally become silent, unless in clear moonlight, when they are heard, with little intermission, till morning."

.ED.