32 BIRDS OF CHESHIRE. 
rare occasions in mid-winter: the Rev. G. E. Freeman 
caught a hen and saw a cock bird at Wildboarclough 
on January 3rd, 1859.1 
The cultivated Cheshire Plain is utterly unsuited to 
the habits of this species. It does not appear to have 
nested on the low-lying mosses at Carrington and 
Lindow before their reclamation, though it has been 
observed during the spring migration at Hale Moss, 
Altrincham? Dr. Dobie has taken eggs on the Bicker- 
ton Hills, which rise above the Plain near Malpas, and 
Mr. R. Newstead records it as breeding on the Overton 
and Helsby Hills On the actual Plain the bird is 
almost unknown, but Mr. R. Newstead tells us that 
one was shot by Mr. A. Cookson near Oakmere in 1893. 
In Wirral the Ring Ousel has been noted on migration 
at Hoylake and elsewhere, and Mr. L. Jones has a bird 
which he shot on Hilbre Island. He informs us that 
in the latter part of April 1894, another bird fre- 
quented the island for several days. Some forty years 
ago nests were said to have been found at Puddington,4 
Noctorum,’ and Upton,® but the evidence, which gave 
rise to some controversy at the time, is far from satis- 
factory, and there is no authentic instance of the Ring 
Ousel breeding in Wirral in recent years. 
In East Cheshire the case is widely different. Per- 
haps nowhere in England is the Ring Ousel more 
plentiful than on the wild moors of the Longdendale 
Valley, and in the Hill Country, from Disley southward 
1 ‘Peregrine,’ Field, vol. xiii. p. 86. 
2 J. E. Smith, Manchester City News, May 16, 1874. 
3 Dobie, op. cit. p. 287. 
4 J. F. Brockholes, Proceedings of the Chester Society of Natural 
Science and Literature, Part i., 1874, p. 5. 
° H. E. Smith, Zransactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire 
and Cheshire, Session 1865-66. N.S. vol. vi. p. 243, 
6 KE. Gleave, Naturalists’ Scrap-book, p. 229. 
