60 NATURAL HISTORY 



seen some of the same birds round his ponds in former sum- 

 mers. 



The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a 

 male red-backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neigh- 

 bour, who shot it, says that it might easily have escaped his 

 notice, had not the outcries and chattering of the white-throats 

 and other small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it 

 was : it's craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles. 



The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) 

 were some ring-ousels, turdi torquati. 



This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being 

 with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told 

 us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries, some birds 

 like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks : a 

 neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same; 

 but, as no specimens w r ere procured, little notice was taken. I 

 mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November 

 the 4th, 1767: (you, however, paid but small regard to what I 

 said, as I had not seen these birds myself:) but last week the 

 aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these 

 birds, shot two cocks and two hens: and says, on recollection, 

 that he remembers to have observed these birds again last 

 spring, about Lady-day, as it were, on their return to the 

 north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the 

 north of England, but belong to the more northern parts of 

 Europe; and may retire before the excessive rigor of the 

 frosts in those parts ; and return to breed in the spring, when 

 the cold abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a new 

 bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the 

 writers are silent : but if these birds should prove the ousels 

 of the north of England, then here is a migration disclosed 

 within our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not 

 yet appear 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 counties. 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 



