NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 59 



The next bird that I procured (on the 2ist 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 ta^en. I mentioned this circumstance 



RING- OUSEL. 



to you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767 (you, however, paid 

 but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen these birds my- 

 self) ; 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, concern- 



