34 The Natural History 



garrulus bohemicus^ or German silk-tail, from the five 

 peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries at the 

 end 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 Philusoph. Letters^ that great flocks of them, 

 feeding upon haws, appeared in this kingdom in the 

 winter of 1685. 



The mention of haws put 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-ousel, were 

 lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some 

 people to nrocure me a specimen, but without success. 

 See Letter VIII. 



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, etc. ? 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 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 chimnies 

 and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of 

 the aits of that river. Now this resorting towards that 

 element, at that season of the year, seems to give some 

 countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of 

 their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so 

 much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in his calendar 

 of Fiora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water 

 in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry 

 going to roost a little before sunset. 



