TIIK RING OUZKL. 247 



there. On one of my visits I remember once seeing a nest of the Black - 

 headed Gull placed amongst the tall reeds like that of the Coot's, and which 

 could not be approached but with a boat; and had it not been for the eggs, 

 it might very easily have been mistaken for the nest of the latter bird. 



(To be continued.) 



THE EING OUZEL.— INLAND MIGRATION. 



BY 0. S. ROUND, KSQ. 



Tjie fact of ordinary migration, by which is understood the movements 

 of our Summer Birds of Passage, is so notorious that it is not necessary to 

 be a naturalist to be not only aware of the circumstance, but to point out 

 which are our Summer Birds, and to have a tolerably accurate idea when 

 they arrive, and when they depart. But the case is very different with 

 winter migration, or inland migration, the knowledge of these depends upon 

 an intimate acquaintance with the habits of our feathered inhabitants, the result 

 of careful observations. Those whose occupation is in the fields, however 

 ignorant, scientifically speaking, they may be, have still a knowledge, necessarily 

 of many things, as yet perhaps unknown to professors; for natural science must 

 be learnt from nature, and nature cannot be studied in the Library, nor her 

 wonders discovered by consuming the "midnight oil;" it is only by breathing 

 the pure air of Heaven in the solitary places of the earth — by being one 

 rational amid multitudes of irrational and inanimate productions of the Great 

 Creator, that we can become aware of the habits or conformation of each. 



Thus I remember very well when I was a boy, talking with a very aged 

 man in our village, about the various birds which were visitants at various 

 periods, and he particularly mentioned the regular periodical visits of the 

 Ring Ouzel, (Mcrula torquata,) at Lady-Day and Michaelmas, attracted as 

 he considered by a kind of food to be met with only at those times in this 

 locality, and not probably to be found in the locality from which they came; 

 and he particularly mentioned that he thought that mountain ash berries in 

 the autumn, and ivy berries in the spring, were their chief attraction. This 

 man was a stone-cutter, and had been a notorious poacher, and many a tale 

 of hairbreadth es^^apes from His Majesty's keepers in Windsor Park, could 

 he relate. He was, as I was then, ignorant of all works on Natural History, 

 but, as in the year 1820, he was upwards of eighty years of age (he lived till 

 the year 1827,) and spoke of the circumstance as one which he remembered 

 ever since he was a boy; and Gilbert White, who first observed it, did not 

 do £0 until 1768, it follows that it was known to this inhabitant of the wilds 

 much earlier, and he gave exactly the same reason as White gives for this 

 periodical journey. Thus we have a strong confirmation of the Selbourne 

 Historian's correctness. It is needless to say that their migration is now 

 well known, and I have myself seen and shot specimens at these periods. 



VOL. IV. 2 K 



