MICE GERMAN SILK-TAIL. 39 



niously 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. 



A gentleman, curious ir. 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 Bohe- 

 micus, 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 mention of haws puts me in mind that there 



1 In 1810, large flocks of this species were dispersed 

 through various parts of the kingdom ; and from that period, 

 lew appear to have visited the island until February, 1822, 

 when several occurred, and one was killed on the Calton 

 Hill, Edinburgh. They appeared also during the severe 

 storm of 1823, and several were killed in East Lothian in the 

 winter of 1828. W. J. 



