43 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male red- 

 backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says 



that it might easily have 

 escaped his notice, had 

 not the outcries and 

 chattering of the white- 

 throats and other small 



tbn'to'thTbush wheTe" 

 it was ; its craw was 

 filled with the legs and 

 wings of beetles. 



The next rare birds 

 (which were procured 

 for me last week) were 

 some ring-ousels, turdi 

 torquati. 



SANDPIPER. 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 hedge where there were berries 

 some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks : 

 a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same ; 

 but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I 

 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 recollection, that he remembers 

 to have observed these birds again last spring, about Lady-day, 

 as it were on their return to the north. Now perhaps these ousels 

 are not the ousels of the north of 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 countries. The ousel is larger 

 than a black-bird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when 

 there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds 



a very extensive foreign range, as well as British, and in this country frequents, 

 during the breeding season, lakes with gravelly margins, or clear rocky streams, 

 where it arrives in spring and remains until its broods are ready to remove. It is 

 a regular summer visitant, and to the angler is a pleasant companion, enlivening 

 the streams with its shrill whistle, and by its active motions. During winter 

 there seems to be a partial as well as general migration, some leaving the country 

 altogether, others retiring only to the sea-shores. 



