OF SELBORNE 47 



in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is 

 discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migra- 

 tions the writers are silent : but if these birds should prove the 

 ousels of the north of England, then here is a migration disclosed 

 within our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not 

 yet appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island 

 to the south ; but it is most probable that they usually do, or else 

 one cannot suppose that they would have continued so long 

 unnoticed in the southern counties. The ousel is larger than a 

 blackbird, and feeds on haws ; but last autumn (when there were 

 no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds on ivy- 

 berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April. 1 



I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the 

 study of reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, 

 draw up with a bucket of water from my well, which is 63 feet 

 deep, a large black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. 2 

 How they first came down at that depth, and how they were 

 ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able 

 to say. 



My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the ex- 

 amination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at 

 present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; and I 



hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my favour ; 



and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision 

 of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation. 



As yet I have not quite done with my history of the oedicnemus, 

 or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near 

 whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) 

 to observe nicely when they leave him, (if they do leave him) 

 and when they return again in the spring : I was with this 

 gentleman lately, and saw several single birds. 



1 [White's further notes on the ring- ouzel will be found in Letters XXL, XXIV., 

 XXV., XXVI., XXXI. , XXXVIII. to Pennant, and VII. to Harrington. He was 

 the first writer to record its arrival and brief stay near the south coast in spring and 

 autumn. These movements stimulated his curiosity, and led, in spite of inaccurate 

 information from Pennant (see Letter XXI. ), to much enlightenment on the question 

 of migration. The ring-ouzel is strictly a summer migrant, as White seems to have 

 guessed when he wrote Letter VII. to Harrington ; in the present letter he is in- 

 clined to class it with the winter migrants, fieldfares, etc.] 



3 [The great crested newt.] 



