(>0 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 live of the short remiges. It cannot, I sup- 

 pose, 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 king- 

 dom in the winter of 1685 6 . 



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 1 , or rin^-ouzel, 

 were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed 

 some people to procure me a specimen, but without 

 success. See Letter XX. 



Query Might not canary birds be naturalized to this 

 climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into 

 the nest 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 wejeks 

 yearly at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant vil- 



perfectly active through the whole winter, on examining its nest a third 

 time, about the end of November, I observed that the food in its repo- 

 sitory was all consumed except about half a dozen grains." E. T. B. 



6 This statement is contained in a Letter to Ray from one of his fre- 

 quent correspondents, Mr. Johnson of Brignal, in Yorkshire; who sus- 

 pects " that the wars in those parts have frightened them thence, and 

 brought them hither this winter, (which with us was above measure 

 plentiful in haws,) for certainly they are not natives." The one described 

 by Ray, was obtained in March, 1685-6. As more than one of these birds, 

 killed in Yorkshire, are said by Lister to have been seen by him in 1680, 

 it should seem that at that time, as of late years, the Bohemian chatterer 

 was an occasional, although uncertain, winter visitant. E. T. B. 



7 [Turdus torquatus, LINN.] 



