54 The Natural History of Selborne 



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 carried 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 artificially 

 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 

 moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful pro- 

 creant 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 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 great flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom 

 in the winter of 1685.* 



1 The Bohemian wax-wing, an occasional visitor to England, appears at long 

 intervals in considerable numbers. ED. 



