40 HAWS CANARY BIRD. 



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 ringousel, were lately seen in this neighbour- 

 hood. I employed some people to procure me a 

 specimen, but without success. See Letter VIII. 



Query Might not Canary birds be naturalized 

 to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in 

 the spring, into the nests of some of their con- 

 geners, 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 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 or islets 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 per- 

 suaded of that fact, that he talks, in his Calendar 

 of Flora, as familiarly of the swallow's going under 

 water in the beginning of September, as he would 

 of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 



An observing gentleman in London writes me 



