_November 4th_, 1767.
Sir,--It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the _falco_ turned
out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better pleased to
have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before; but
that, I find, would be a difficult task.
I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young
one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy.
From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but
that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and more
slender, than the _mus domesticus medius_ of Ray, and have more of the
squirrel or dormouse colour; their belly is white, a straight line along
their sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They never enter
into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, abound in
harvest; and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the
ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at a
litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.
One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and
composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly round, and about the size of a
cricket ball, with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no
discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled,
that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, 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 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 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 male _garrulus 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
"Philosophical 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 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-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 naturalised to this climate, provided
their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their
congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, 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
struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate,
forsaking the chimneys 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 swallows going under water in
the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a
little before sunset.
An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a
house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in and out of
its nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last
October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five swallows
hovering round and settling on the roof of the county hospital.
Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been
hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and
from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as
far as the equator?
I acquiesce entirely in your opinion--that, though most of the swallow
kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and hide with us during
the winter.
As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come trooping in such
numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect about them. I
watched them narrowly this year, and saw them abound till about
Michaelmas, when they appeared no longer. Subsist they cannot openly
among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive; and, as to their
hiding, no man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state in
the winter. But with regard to their migration, what difficulties attend
that supposition! that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never
flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas and
continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the regions of Africa!