NATURAL HISTOHY OF SELBOUNE. 31 
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* 
The mention of haws puts me 
in mind that there is a total 
failure of that wild fruit, so con- 
ducive to the support of many 
of the winged nation. For the 
same severe weather, late in the 
spring, which cut off all the pro- 
duce 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-ouzel, were 
lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure 
me a specimen, but without success. (See Letter YIIL) 
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, &c. 1 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 chimnies 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 Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, 
that he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallow's 
* The letter alluded to was from Mr. Johnson to Mr. Ray, in 1686. "On the 
backside you have the description of a new English bird. They came near us in 
great flocks like fieldfares, and fed upon haws as they do. " And in another letter 
from Mr. Thoresby to Mr. Ray, 1703, it is said, "I am tempted to think the 
German silk-tail is become natural tc us, there being no less than three killed 
nigh this town the last winter. " Thus has the wax-wing occurred occasionally 
in this county, but there is no record of any great numbers appearing together 
since Ray's time, until in 1849-50, when an unusual number visited us. The 
direction of the flight was from east to west, and the principal localities where 
they occurred were the eastern or coast districts of Durham and Yorkshire in 
the north, and of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent in the south. Their appearance 
reached over a period from November 1849, to March 1850, January being the 
principal month of their appearance ; no fewer than 429 are recorded to have 
been killed in that month, and during the whole time they were observed, 586 
specimens were known to have been obtained — a very wanton destruction. 
BOHEMIAN WAX-WING. 
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