belonged. It was fo compadt and well filled, that it would roll
acrofs the table without being difcompofed, though it contained’
Tv eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this neft was-
r * perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter refpedtively
r - f0 as to adminifter a teat to each? perhaps (he opens different
places for that purpofe, adjufting them again when the bufinefs is
over: but fhe could not polfibly be contained herfelfin the ball
35 w;th her young, which moreover would be daily increafing in
~ bulk. This wonderful procréant cradlëj an elegant inftance o f
; t, the efforts of inftindt, was found in-a "wheat-field fufpended in the
head of a thiftle.
A gentleman, curious in birds, Wrote me word that his fervant
had foot one laft January, in that fevere weather, which he believed
would puzzle me. I called to fee it this, fummer, not knowing
what to expe<fi : but, the moment I took it in .hand, I pronounced
it the male garrulus bobemkus or German filk-tail, from die five
peculiar cnmfon tags or points which it carries at the ends of five
of the fhort remiges. It cannot, I fuppofe, with any propriety,
be called an Englifh bird : and yet I fee, by Ray’s Pkilofopb. 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, fo conducive to the fupport of many of
the winged nation. For the fame fevere weather, late in the
fpring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and
curious trees, deftroyed alfo that of the more hardy and
common.
Some birds, haunting with the miffel-thrufoes, and feeding
on the berries of the yew-tree, which anfwered to the defcriptipn
of the meruld torquata or ring-oubxl, were lately feen in this neighbourhood
»
O F S E L B O R N E . 35
bourhood. I employed fome people to procure me a fpecimen,
but without fuccefs. See.Letter VIII. ( _ y , , »
■ Query-*-Might nat-Camy bird» be naturalized to this chmate^ - ^ r^;;/,ƒ * ,
provided their eggs were put, in the fpring, into the nefts
feme of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. ? Before
winter perhaps they might be hardened, and able to flnft J-
■ themfelves.
About ten years ago I ufed to. fpend fome weeks yearly
■ Sunbuiy, which is one of thofe pleafant villages lying on
Thames, near Hamptm-court. In the autumn, I could not
being much amufed with thofe myriads of the fwallow kind«* *~ * *~ ~ * '
which affemble in thofe parts. But what ftruck me moft was, that,
from the time they began to congregate, forfakirig the chimnies
and houfes, they roofted every night in the ofier-beds o f the aits
of that river. Now this referring towards that element, at that
feafon of the year, feemsto give fome countenance to the northern
•opinion (ftrange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedijh
naturalift is fo much pcrfoadsd of that fad, that he talks, in his
calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the fwallow’s going under water ,
in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to
rood: a little before funfet.
An obferving gentleman in London writes me word that he faw
an houfe-martin, on the twenty-third of laft October, flying in and
out' of it's neft in die Borough. And I myfelf, on foe twenty-
ninth of laft ORober (as I was travelling through Oxford), faw four
or five fwallows hovering round and fetding on the roof of foe
county-hofpital.
Now is it likely that tbefe poor little birds (which perhaps foad
not been hatched but a few weeks) foould, at that late feafon of the