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 hews, appeared in this
kingdom in the winter of 1685.

The mention of hews 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 missal-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 XX.

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, 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