WILD LIFE: FURRED AND FEATHERED. 53 



nesting in tunnels in the reddish -yellow sandstone of 

 Surrey, is a pretty sight; they nest also in earth cliffs by 

 the riverside, or in railway cuttings and gravel quarries, 

 boring galleries which slant somewhat upwards, and 

 making the nest in an enlarged space at the end of dry 

 grass and plenty of feathers. Their eggs are pure white, 

 four to six in number. Their song is only a faint twitter ; 

 gnats and other small insects compose their diet. 



The ring-ousel is by no means a common bird, and he is 

 the only bird of the thrush family that leaves us altogether 

 during the winter. He may be with us at the end of this 

 month, or may not appear until early in April. His comings 

 and goings are irregular, and he is looked upon by the 

 rustics in our Southern counties as a somewhat mysterious 

 visitant. As a rule this bird prefers to haunt the banks of 

 Northern streams, and the wild, hilly parts of Devon, 

 Cornwall, the Welsh hills, and other high districts, where it 

 feeds on the berries of the mountain-ash and the autumn 

 moorland berries; worms, slugs, and insects satisfy it earlier, 

 and what it can pick up in gardens near its haunts. Its 

 motions are very different to those of the other thrushes, 

 and these arrest the eye quickly, before one can distinguish 

 the bird rightly. On the Surrey moors, which he visits at 

 times only, sometimes singly, sometimes in flocks, where 

 junipers abound, he feeds on those berries, but those of the 

 mountain-ash he much prefers. On ledges of the rock or 

 in the banks near the stream sides the ring-ousel white- 

 throated blackbird the country folks call him likes to 

 make his nest, although he has it also at times in the 

 tall ling on the moors. Although you may see the bird 

 this month, you will not find his nest so early. 



