126 NATURAL HISTORY 



have no reason to repent that you have 

 bestowed so much pains on a part of Great 

 Britain that perhaps was never so well 

 examined before. 



It has always been matter of wonder to 

 me that fieldfares, which are so congene- 

 rous to thrushes and blackbirds, should 

 never choose to breed in England: but that 

 they should not think even the highlands 

 cold and northerly, and sequestered enough, 

 is a circumstance still more strange and 

 wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays 

 in Scotland the whole year round ; so that 

 we have reason to conclude that those mi- 

 grators that visit us for a short space every 

 Autumn do not come from thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper 

 place to mention that those birds were most 

 punctual again in their migration this Au- 

 tumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th 

 oi September : but their flocks were larger 

 than common, and their stay protracted 

 somewhat beyond the usual time. If they 

 came to spend the whole Winter wilh us, 

 as some of their congeners do, and then left 



