RING OUZEL. 79 



the Ring Ouzel is so called with us in Craven, where there is 

 everywhere in the moors plenty of them.' It is perhaps most 

 abundant on the rolling heatherlands of the south-west, where 

 the late Mr. Wm. Talbot informed me he had found no less 

 than thirteen nests during a walk from Hebden Bridge to Tod- 

 morden, a distance of but a little over two miles. 



This bird usually arrives at its breeding haunts during the 

 first week in April, sometimes in flocks ; the cock is then very 

 noisy and is heard pouring forth vehemently his stunted song 

 from every prominent crag or other coign of vantage. Towards 

 the end of the month the nest may be found either on the 

 ground on a flat expanse or sloping bank of heather, or else 

 in the heather fringing the brink of a dell or moorland beck, 

 or concealed in a solitary tuft on a rocky hill side, and the 

 writer has also found it placed between the stem of a whin 

 bush and the face of the crag from which it sprang. He has 

 found a nest containing five eggs, but four seems to be the 

 usual number. A Ring Ouzel is recorded by Mr. Heppenstall 

 (Zool. 1843, p. 144) to have nested on the bank of a peat 

 drain on Thorne Waste, a low-lying tract of heath on the Lin- 

 colnshire border of the county, and only a few feet above sea 

 level. It is also said to have nested near Beverley (Zool. 1865, 

 p. 592), but the occurrence in this instance is open to the gravest 

 doubt. These summer visitants quit the moors in September, 

 even early in that month visiting the lowlands and the coast, 

 and as a rule leave the country by the end of the month. 



In the late autumn, usually during the closing days of 

 October, a considerable number of these birds arrive on the 

 coast and linger in its immediate vicinity* for some days 

 (in 1882 a couple of weeks) frequent tall old hedgerows of 

 whitethorn, where they feast upon the haws, the gizzards of 

 those examined containing no other food. The numerous 



* The writer saw a pair feeding on haws at Arthington in Wharfedale 

 on the 2nd of November, 1884. 



