56 iT^ TUHA L HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



T 



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, concerning whose migrations 

 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. 



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 sixty-three feet deep, a large black 

 warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. 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 examination of a. buck's head. As far as your dis- 

 coveries 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 



