RING OUSEL, 49 



Slst of October, 1840, I saw one which had been shot at 

 Brighton a few days previously, and on the 31st of September 

 of the following year, one shot at Westmeston. I also know 

 of one, obtained near Lewes, as early as the 6th of April, 

 and another occurred near Brighton in October 1843, and 

 several more in the same month of the next year. On the 

 18th of September, 1853, I was walking up to the Rectory 

 at Petworth, and my attention being attracted by their 

 harsh note, I saw several Ring Ousels flying from a moun- 

 tain-ash in the garden, and afterwards had a good view of 

 them from a window, feeding on the berries. On the South 

 Downs these birds still continue their migrations, as they 

 did in the time of Gilbert White. 



Mr. Knox merely observes that it is a passing visitor in 

 spring and autumn, resting for a few days among the 

 junipers and holly-bushes on our elevated commons and 

 highest downs. 



Mr. Booth, in his ' Rough Notes,' writes as follows : — " I 

 possess the best evidence that a pair reared their young in 

 the spring of 1865, in the lower branches of a stunted thorn- 

 bush in a sloping hollow of the South Downs near Thunder's 

 Barrow, between Portslade and the Dyke Hill, the juveniles 

 being seen near the same spot, attended by the old birds, a 

 week or so after they were observed in the nest. My in- 

 formant also stated that the previous year a shepherd had 

 told him that a bird, resembling a Blackbird with a white 

 ring round the throat, had taken up its quarters in a ruined 

 hovel in one of the valleys among the hills near Hangleton, 

 the nest having been placed on the wall-plate in the space 

 left where one of the rafters had fallen away. Though this 

 Ousel is generally well known in this part of Sussex, a few 

 being seen annually in spring while on the passage towards 

 the north, arid numbers frequenting the hills about Palmer, 

 -Patcham, and Portslade, during the latter end of autumn, 



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