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 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.
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