April 



tender and " triste " as those of a winter robin, are 

 delivered with startling exactitude ; but, as if spring 

 resented the reminiscence, he slips at once into the 

 garrulous gabblings of the whitethroat, now all but 

 due ; and, to complete the illusion, throws him- 

 self up into the air like that bird, and fluttering 

 or snapping at some passing insect, breaks back to 

 his perch to utter his " U-tick-tick ! " a variant of the 

 double-noted call common to all the chats. More 

 peculiarly his own is his partiality for rummaging in 

 the grass and clinging to some upstanding stem, 

 foreshadowing nesting and feeding habits which he 

 shares with neither redbreast nor wheatear. 



On the nth April I found the ring-ousel on 

 Cown Edge in the Derbyshire hills, and watched 

 it as it sang from a jutting crag to the wide valley 

 below. At the same spot, on the i8th April, a pair 

 of these birds went through a protracted courting 

 performance almost at my feet. 



The pure white crescent which hangs at the 

 throat of both the male and female ring-ousels 

 serves to distinguish them from the blackbird, even 

 at a great distance, although, save for the orange 

 bill of the blackbird, there is little else to dis- 

 criminate the two species upon a general view. 

 The ring-ousel, however, has none of the excessive 

 timidity of the blackbird, and upon nearer inspec- 

 tion the general black of his feathers is seen to 

 be relieved by greyish edgings. 



My attention was called to the two birds as they 



"5 



