84 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



syllable it so often utters. It is a first cousin of the 

 Linnet and the Redpolls. Among the heather it seeks 

 for seeds all the year round, but it comes lower down 

 when winter sets in. The nest, made of root-fibres 

 and grass to the outside, hair and feathers to the 

 inside, is built in all sorts of sheltered corners; the 

 three or four eggs are pale greenish-blue blotched 

 with reddish-brown; the young are fed on seeds from 

 the parent's crop. There is not much that is striking 

 about this little brownish bird (the male has a rose- 

 red rump), but we often raise it from among the 

 heather and see it flit on ahead and settle down on a 

 grey boulder. It has not much to say, but we are 

 always glad to hear it. 



The Ring Ouzel or Mountain Blackbird (Turdus 

 torquatus) is readily known by the crescent of white on 

 the throat broad and brilliant in the full-grown male, 

 narrower and duller in the female. It gets many other 

 names, such as Moor Blackbird and Crag Ouzel, both 

 of which suggest its fondness for the heights. It is 

 about the same size as a Blackbird. It is very charac- 

 teristic of our mountains and moors, making its nest 

 among the heather, in broken banks, and by the sides 

 of streams. In its nest and its eggs, very like the 

 Blackbird's, it reveals its relationship, for it is just a 

 Mountain Blackbird. In his indispensable "Manual of 

 British Birds " Mr. Howard Saunders writes : " Few 

 birds are bolder when their young are approached, the 

 parents flying round the intruder, uttering their sharp 

 alarm note of ' tac-tac-tac/ ' tac-tac-tac ' ; but the song 

 is somewhat monotonous, and derives its chief charm 

 from the scenery in which it is heard." For the Ring 

 Ouzel is a bird of the hills and glens. It feeds on 



