THE HABITS OF THE RING OUZEL. H3 



the Yorkshire moors, which is thickly dotted with greyish brown, in the 

 manner of those of a Jay. 



The female is greatly attached to the young, and will, I have been told, 

 sometimes allow herself to be taken off the nest. The young birds are of a 

 brown colour, and entirely without the white gorget which in the male is so 

 conspicuous. This has caused them to be looked on as a distinct species. 

 In the female, the white is always interspersed with some dark-coloured 

 feathers. 



The song of the male is wild and desultory, and hanaonizes well with the 

 cry of the Curlew and Golden Plover, who are usually his near neighbours. 

 If suddenly started he has a cry similar to that of the Blackbird in a like 

 pi'edicament. 



They are not rare on various parts of Dartmoor, but can hardly be called 

 very common. On some of the Yorkshire moors they are more plentiful, 

 and I have been told of their nest having been taken there among the ivy 

 covering a rock, at a considerable elevation above the ground. 



If you shoot and eat them, (mind ! I never did either), you will find them 

 not to be despised. Yarrell says that, in France, where they frequent vine- 

 yards and feed upon grapes, they are esteemed a great delicacy. I have 

 usually found that they are careful to keep out of gunshot, and am glad of it, 

 for I should regret the death of such a harmless and joj'ous denizen of the 

 gray moors. 



Here, in this smoky emporium of the cotton trade, amid all the abomina- 

 tions of a large manufacturing town — " deformities of brick and mortar 

 penning up deformities of mind and body " — I cannot but look back with 

 regret to the sunny air, the purple moors, and the rushing streams of beauti- 

 ful Dartmoor. Man, however, has better and holier objects in life than even 

 the harmless study of nature. / must remember this ; but if thou, gentle 

 reader, hast time and opportunity to visit the Eing Ouzel on his native 

 granite, and if what I have written leads you to feel an interest in him, my 

 writing this will not have been altogether useless. 



For the present I bid you heartily farewell. 



Manchester, Sept. 7th, 1854. 



THE SWAMPS OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 



By GEORGE DONALDSON, ESQ. 



CCondrided from page 85. J 



Before clearing out of the brake, I determined upon killing one of the 

 largest Alligatoi's I could find, for the purpose of procuring his teeth, as 

 a memento of him ; and I succeeded in doing so. I have 72 of them along 



