258 NATURAL HlSTOJRY OF SELBORNE. 



Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China 

 and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate 

 as to thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. 

 Linnaeus ranks this species of fish under the genus of 

 cyprinuSf or carp, and calls it Gyprinus auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful 

 way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large 

 hollow space within, that does not communicate with it. 

 In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you 

 may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the 

 midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle 

 round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable 

 and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way becomes 

 whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due 

 to him, 



" Qui variare cupit rem prodigialitfer unam." 



LETTER LV. 



Oct. 10th, 1781. 

 I THINK I have observed before that much of the most 

 considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from 

 hence about the first week in October ; but that some, the 

 latter broods I am now convinced, linger on till towards 

 the middle of that month ; and that at times, once perhaps 

 in two or three years, a flight, for one day only, has 

 shown itself in the first week in November. 



Having taken notice, in October 1780, that the last flight 

 was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty, 



