32 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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, and 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 malegarru/us 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, 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 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 naturalized to this 

 climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into 

 the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, green- 

 finches, 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 



