Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins)
breed, I know, in that manner; but I should never have suspected
the daws of building in holes on the flat ground.
Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to
breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in
the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that
amazing work of antiquity: which circumstance alone speaks the
prodigious height of the upright stones, that they should be tall
enough to secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys,
who are always idling round that place.
One of my neighbours last Saturday, November the 26th, saw a
martin in a sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, and the bird was
hawking briskly after flies. I am now perfectly satisfied that they
do not all leave this island in the winter.
You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution
concerning the cures done by toads: for, let people advance what
they will on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in
mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot
safely relate any thing from common report, especially in print,
without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion.
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