OF SELBORNE 41 



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 

 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 tliistle. 



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 

 end 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 Philosoph. Letters, that great flocks of them, 

 feeding upon haws, appeared in this kingdom in the 

 winter of 1685. 



The mention of haws put 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 

 feeding on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to 

 the description of the merula torquata, or ring-ousel, 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, 



5fr— B* 



