OF SELBORNE. 43 



aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discover- 

 ing to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well 

 filled, that it would roll across the table without being dis- 

 composed, 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 the 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. 1 



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 Bolie- 

 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 Philoso- 

 phical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, 

 appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685. 2 



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. 



1 We are indebted to Gilbert White for the first published account of 

 this beautiful little animal as indigenous to this country, although it 

 appears to have been previously seen by Montagu in Wiltshire (cf 

 Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. vii. p. 274). White communicated his discovery 

 to Pennant, who published it in the second edition of his "British 

 Quadrupeds ; " and thence it has been copied, with but little addition, 

 by almost every writer on the subject of British mammalia. ED. 



2 The waxwing, or Bohemian chatterer, as it is often called (Ampclis 

 garrulus, Linna3us), may be regarded as an irregular winter visitant to 

 this country, occasionally appearing in large flocks. ED. 



