OUZEL. 213 



intruder away by well-feigned and real symptoms of distress. 

 It is of a very shy nature, and if disturbed, which it easily 

 is even from a covert, rises up to a considerable height, and 

 often flies as much as half a mile before it alights. 



The Ring Ouzel is rather rapid in its flight, which is very 

 little undulated, and if sojourning in districts where there 

 are hedgerows, seems to have a habit, at least when dis- 

 turbed, of flying in and out in half circles in its progress 

 along a hedge, or the side of a wood. 



It feeds on insects, worms, and snails, and likewise on 

 different fruits and seeds those of the mountain ash, the 

 bilberry, the juniper, the rowan, and the holly. When the 

 yoang ones are fledged, they frequently descend to the 

 gardens nearest to their native wilds, where they do considerable 

 damage among cherries, raspberries, currants, plums, and 

 gooseberries, and, where there are any, among grapes and 

 various wall fruits. 



Its song is desultory but sweet a few plaintive notes 

 uttered in a clear and warbling whistle. Its alarm is sig- 

 nified by a strong cry, resembling that of the Blackbird. 

 Meyer says that its ordinary note resembles the syllable 'tuk.' 



The nest is placed among the heather upon a ledge or in 

 some hollow of the grey and hoary rock, whose weather-beaten 

 front tells of many a cold and wintry blast, that has swept, 

 age after age, over the wild and desolate moor or the barren 

 mountain side. It is hidden more or less by a tuft of 

 heath, the root of a tree, or a projection of the rock in 

 which it is placed: those found in the more southerly counties 

 were placed at a height of about five or six feet from the 

 ground, in such a situation as a yew tree, or ivy-clad elm. 

 It measures about seven inches in diameter, about three 

 inches and a half in depth on the outside, and about two 

 inches inside. It is composed of dried grasses, heather, stems, 

 or stalks, thickly matted together, with here and there an 

 occasional leaf: on the inside it is lined, according to some 

 with mud, within which again is another lining of similar 

 materials to those of which the outside is compacted. 



The eggs are pale greenish blue, sparingly freckled with 

 pale purple and reddish brown markings, except at the larger 

 end, where those obscurations are confluent, and entirely 

 conceal the ground colour. They vary in the depth of the 

 markings, some being much lighter, and some much darker 

 than others. One has been noticed by Mr. A. Evans of a 



