38 



THE RING-OUZEL. 

 Turdiis torquatits, L. 



The records of tliis spocies were so scanty that it is almost 

 impossible to arrive at a definite conclusion as to its main 

 points of entrance into the country, hut sucii evidence as is 

 available sugffests the western end of the south coast as 

 being at any rate the principal point of arrival. 



The earliest record of a single bird was in Kent on the 

 5th of March. Between the lOth and 27th of that month 

 single birds were noted in (Cornwall, Devonshire, Brecon, 

 Carnarvon, Cheshire and Yorkshire, and in Renfrew on 

 the 30th. 



On the 17th of April several were noted passing through 

 the Scilly Islands, and on the 19tli a flock of about 200 

 individuals was observed on Dartmoor, evidently also on 

 passage. The only lighthouse record was of a single bird 

 seen at the Chicken Rock light (Isle of Man) on the night 

 of the 31st of March and the 1st of April. 



A nest with four eggs was found in Lancashire on the 

 23rd of April, one with two eggs in Northumberland on 

 the 28th, and one with four eggs (hatching) in Radnor on 

 the 13th of May. It is evident, therefore, that the majority 

 of our own summer-residents must have arrived during 

 March and the first few days of April, and that the birds 

 recorded in the Isles of Scilly and in Devonshire in the third 

 week of that month were passage-migrants journeying to 

 more northern breeding-haunts, as undoubtedly were those 

 recorded in the eastern and south-eastern counties at the end 

 of April and in May. 



