54 The Natural History of Selborm 



young, both of which I have preserved in brandy. From the 

 colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but 

 that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and 

 more slender, than the mus domesticus medius of Ray ; and 

 have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour ; their belly is 

 white, a straight line along their sides divides the shades of 

 their back and belly. They never enter into houses ; are car- 

 ried into ricks and barns with the sheaves ; abound in harvest ; 

 and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above 

 the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed as many 

 as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the 

 blades of grass or wheat. 



One of these nests I procured this autumn, most arti- 

 ficially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly 

 round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture 

 so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what 

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

 would roll across the table without being discomposed, though 

 it contained 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 contained herself in the ball with her young, which more- 

 over would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful 

 procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of in- 

 stinct, was found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a 

 thistle. 



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

 servant 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 



