MICE GERMAN SILK-TAIL. 29 



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 

 nondescript. 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 

 ingeniously 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, more- 

 over, 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 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, from the five peculiar crimson tags, or points, 

 which it carries at the ends of five of the short remiges. It 

 cannot, 1 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.* 



* This beautiful bird (the ampelis garrula of Temminck) is a frequent 

 visitor of Britain, and always appears in flocks. The Rev. Perceval 

 Hunter mentions a flock of them having been seen in Kent in 1828. 

 Bewick remarks that great numbers were taken in Northumberland in 

 the years 1789 and 1790. In 1810, large flocks were dispersed through 



