276 THE MOUNTAIN BLACKBIRD. 



writers are silent ; but if these are the ousels of the north of England, then 

 here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never before 

 remarked." 



On being satisfied, that -they were indigenous in Scotland, 

 with his usual shrewdness he says : — 



"If they came to spend the whole winter with us and left us in spring I 

 should not be so struck, as it would be like other winter birds of passage ; 

 but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, and again for a week in 

 April, I am seized with wonder, and long to know whence these travellers 

 come and whither they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn 

 or baiting-place." 



Which is quite true, for a partial or a complete stream of 



migration goes on every spring for breeding and every autumn 



for food — as already said, love and hunger rule the world — and 



Nature is so very full of creatures, their habits so various, that 



most is known where most is searched and studied. Such birds 



as the robin and tit leave their summer haunts in autumn and 



return in spring without leaving the country, so many of these 



ring-ousels (even from Norway), not content with Britain, pass 



on to the Continent and return again to breed in spring, for, as 



a rule, birds retire before the sun in spring and return in 



autumn, and the straggling parties seen on our Kinkell Braes in 



April were likely on their way to breed. The male shot at 



Priormoor in June was in splendid plumage — the white ring or 



gorget of the neck finely marked, the under side of the wings 



bright silvery white, wing coverts beautifully light grey, under 



parts black, margined with grey ; general colour of the upper 



parts and tail, black; irides dark brown; legs and bill, 



blackish-brown; base of bill, yellow. The female is more 



tinged with grey, the ring less, and clouded with brown. In 



the young males the ring is reddish-white, and awanting in the 



young females. Instead of black birds or black thrushes, our 



blackbirds were called ousels by old poets — for instance, in 



" Henry IV.," Shakespeare makes Shallow ask — 



" And how does my cousin, your bedfellow? 

 Sil. — Alas ! a black ousel, cousin Shallow."* 



The next in this order of affinity is another black bird or 

 ousel with a white breast — the water-ousel or European dipper, 

 in the 



Sub-Family Myiotherina, 

 which, with the exception of the genus Clnclus, is not repre- 



*Shax. says — "Ousel is a name common to birds of the thrush family. 

 One is the European blackbird." 



