70 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south ; 

 but it is most probable that they usually do, or else one cannot 

 suppose that they would have continued so long unnoticed in the 

 southern countries. The ousel is larger than a blackbird, and 

 feeds on haws ; but last autumn (when there were no haws) it fed 

 on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds on ivy-berries, which ripen 

 only at that season, in March and April. 



I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the 

 study of reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw 

 up with a bucket of water from my well, which is sixty-three feet 

 deep, a large black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. 

 How they first came down at that depth, and how they were 

 ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able 

 to say. 



My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the 

 examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at 

 present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions; and I 



hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my favour ; 



and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of 

 nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation. 



As yet I have not quite done with my history of the cedicnemus, 

 or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near 

 whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn; 

 to observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave him), and 

 when they return again in the spring : I was with this gentleman 

 lately, and saw several single birds. 



NOTE TO LETTER XX. 



1 The ring-ousel was common on the Eglwyseg Rocks bordering the Vale of 

 Llangollen. It appears to make a partial migration to the south of England 

 in the autumn, , 



