32 WHITE 



it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that it would 

 roll across the table without being discomposed, though it con- 

 tained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this 

 nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter 

 respectively so as to administer a teat to each ? Perhaps she 

 opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again 

 when the business is over ; but she could not possibly be con- 

 tained herself in the ball with her young, which moreover 

 would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant 

 cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found 

 in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle. 



A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his ser- 

 vant had shot one last January, in that severe weather, which 

 he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this summer, 

 not knowing what to expect, but the moment I took it in hand, 

 I pronounced it the male garrulus bohemicus or German silk- 

 tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries 

 at the ends of five of the short remiges. It cannot, I suppose, 

 with any propriety, be called an English bird ; and yet I see, 

 by Ray's " Philosophical Letters," that great flocks of them, 

 feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 

 1685. 



The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total 

 failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many 

 of the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in 

 the spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender 

 and curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and 

 common. 



Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding 

 on the berries of the yew tree, which answered to the descrip- 

 tion of the merula torquata, or ring-ousel, were lately seen in 

 this neighborhood. I employed some people to procure me a 

 specimen, but without success. (See Letter VIII.) 



Query. Might not canary birds be naturalized to this cli- 

 mate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests 

 of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, etc. ? 

 Before winter perhaps they might be hardened, and able to 

 shift for themselves. 



About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at 



