OF SELBORNE. 97 



The next rare birds (which were pro- 

 cured for me last week) were some ring- 

 ousels, turdi torqiiati. 



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 edge where there were ber- 

 ries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings 

 of white round their necks : a neighbour- 

 ing farmer also at the same time observed 

 the same ; but, as no specimens were pro- 

 cured, little notice was taken. 1 mentioned 

 this circumstance 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 myself:) 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 re- 

 collection, that he remembers to have ob- 

 served these birds again last Spring, about 

 Ladyday, as it were, on their return to the 

 north. Now perhaps these ousels are not 

 the ousels of the north of England, but be- 

 long to the more northern parts of Europe ; 



VOL. I. H 



