The Natural History of Selborne 87 



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

 summers. 1 



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

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

 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. 



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 were procured, little notice was taken. 

 I mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November 

 the 4th, 1767 [Letter XII.J (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 

 rigour 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 pro- 

 bable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that 



1 The sandpiper is not, as White thought, a specially northern bird. It 

 occurs in most parts of our southern counties. ED. 



