OF SELBORNE 27 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former 

 letters, a young one and a female with 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 

 non-descript. 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 ingeni- 

 ously 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 procreant cradle, an elegant instance 

 of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field suspended in 

 the head of a thistle. 1 



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, 2 

 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 Rays 

 Philosoph. 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 



1 [See Letter X. to Pennant, and note thereon.] 



z [Ampelis garrulus, L. Waxwings were common in 1866-67, and again in 

 1872-73.] 



