50 WHITE 



the banks of some ponds near the village ; and, as it had a 

 companion, doubtless intended to have bred near that water. 

 Besides, the owner has told me since, that on recollection, he 

 has seen some of the same birds round his ponds in former 

 summers. 



The next bird that I procured (on the 2ist May) was a male 

 red-backed butcher-bird, lanius collurio. My neighbor, who 

 shot it, says that it might easily have escaped his notice, had 

 not the outcries and chattering of the whitethroats and other 

 small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it was ; its 

 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. 1 



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 neigh- 

 boring farmer also at the same time observed the same ; but, 

 as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I men- 

 tioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November 4th, 

 1 767 (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 Eng- 

 land, 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 Eng- 

 land, then here is a migration disclosed within our own king- 

 dom 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 countries. The ousel is larger than a blackbird, 



