OUSEL MIGRATION. 91 



loxia and fringilla genera ; and no motacillce, or muscicapce, were 

 to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was ob- 

 vious enough ; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which 

 are easily carried on board ; while the soft-billed birds, which 

 are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum 

 for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and 

 tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collec- 

 tions (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of 

 some of the most delicate and lively genera. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXI. To T. PENNANT, ESQ. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770. 



You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags ; 

 and are further assured that they continue resident in those cold 

 regions the whole year.* From whence then do our ring-ousels 

 migrate so regularly every September, and make their appear- 

 ance again, as if in their return, every April ? They are more 

 early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual 

 hill on the fourth of this month. 



An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they fre- 

 quent some parts of )artmoor, and breed there ; but leave those 

 haunts about the end of September or beginning of October, and 

 return again about the end of March. 



Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 

 abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called there Tor- 

 ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and return in 

 spring. This information seems to throw some light on my new 

 migration. 



Scopoli's new workf (which I have just procured) has its 

 merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and Car- 

 niola. Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I 

 think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation 

 from the lovers of natural history ; for, as no man can alone in- 

 vestigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each 

 in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and 



* Selby, and all the recent ornithologists, describe this species to migrate regularly in autumn. 

 1 am, therefore, much inclined to suspect that Mr. Pennant's informants confounded it with the 

 common dipper (cinclus Europ&us) ED, 



t Annus Primus Historico-Naturalu. 



