The Natural History of Selborne 5 5 



Silk-tail 



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 description of 

 the merula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this neigh- 

 bourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but 

 without success. (See Letter XX.) 



Query. Might not canary birds be naturalised to this climate, 

 provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some 

 of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. ? 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 

 Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the 

 Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I v could not help 

 being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which 

 assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from 

 the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and 

 houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the aits [eyots] 

 of that river. Now this resorting towards that element, at that 



