RING OUZEL. 229 



THE RING OUZEL is a summer visitor to the British 

 Islands ; and its migrations are thus decidedly opposite as 

 to season to those of the Fieldfare and Redwing, which 

 visit us in winter. 



The Ring Ouzel arrives in this country from the south 

 in the month of April, and appears to prefer the extreme 

 western and northern portions of these islands, visiting the 

 wilder, and more mountainous districts generally. They 

 breed, it is said, on Dartmoor every year ; and Mr. Couch 

 sent me notice that they breed also on the rocky ground a 

 little north of Liskeard. Mr. Ey ton has noticed that they 

 are by no means rare birds in Wales, particularly on the 

 Berwyn chain of mountains near Corwen. According to 

 Mr. Thompson,* they are distributed generally over Ire- 

 land ; and the birds are seen every spring in Devonshire 

 and Cornwall, on their passage, probably, to these breed- 

 ing grounds. 



They are seen in Surrey, Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Nor- 

 folk, both in spring and autumn ; and from the circumstance 

 of a specimen having been shot early in the month of 

 August, 1836, near Saffron Walden, it was conjectured the 

 bird had been bred in that neighbourhood. In 1804, a pair 

 built in a garden at Lowestoff ; but their nests are much 

 more frequent in the northern counties. Mr. Allis of York 

 tells me that it breeds in the higher moorlands of York- 

 shire : and the eggs of this bird in my own collection were 

 sent me by Mr. Leyland of Halifax. They are known to 

 breed also in Derbyshire. Mr. Selby, in his Catalogue of 

 Birds of the county of Northumberland, says it is common 

 in summer throughout the Cheviot range, and the higher 

 parts of Cumberland and Durham. At the meeting of the 

 Berwick Naturalists' Club in September, 1834, Mr. Arm- 

 strong mentioned having procured the nest of this bird from 

 * Mag. of Zool. and Bot. vol. ii. p. 438. 



