NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 35 



or points which it carries at the ends of five of the short 

 reniiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, bo 

 called an English bird ; and yet I see, by Ray's Philoso- 

 phical 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 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 feed- 

 ing on the berries of the yew tree, which answered to the 

 description of the Merula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were 

 lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people 

 to procure 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 chimneys 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 



