OF 8ELSORNE. 71 



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 per- 

 haps 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 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. 1 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 



1 This is Triton, paluslris; as to the "lin-tail" see note, p. 68. ED. 



