244 BRITISH BIRDS. 



the Petchora^ we may almost assume that rocks are indispensable to the 

 Ring-Ouzel. It appears again more to the east amongst the rocks of the 

 Ural Mountains ; but its further range eastwards appears to be barred by 

 the rocldess steppes of West Siberia. When the Redwing and the Field- 

 fare are on the point of departure from our shores for their northern 

 breeding-haunts, the Ring-OuzeFs bold and defiant cries are first heard^ 

 and his song, carried hither and thither over the moorlands by the breeze, 

 sounds wild and sweet as, tempered by distance, it greets our ear as the 

 bird sits wary and watchful on the highest pinnacle of some projecting 

 rock. Impelled by resistless impulse, this handsome Ouzel has again 

 sought the solitudes of the moors for the purpose of rearing its young, 

 arriving towards the end of March or early in April. 



The Ring-Ouzel is a somewhat remarkable bird ; for although not the 

 only migratory British Thrush, still it is the only Thrush that visits our 

 country for the purpose of rearing its young ; and, in addition to this, it is 

 the only Thrush that principally confines itself to the upland wilds. A true 

 bird of the wilderness, it prefers the deepest solitudes that our land affords. 

 Truly, indeed, the Ring-Ouzel's home is a wild and romantic one. You will 

 first make his acquaintance where the heath begins, where the silver birch 

 trees are scattered amongst the rock-fragments, and the gorse bushes and 

 stunted thorns and bracken are the last signs of more lowland vegetation. 

 The scenery gets wilder, but still the bird is your companion; he fiits 

 from rock to rock before you, or, by making long detours, returns to the 

 place whence you flushed him, uttering his loud, harsh, and discordant 

 call-notes. The hills of Derbyshire are one of his favourite haunts : 

 almost on the very summit of Kinder Scout, the highest peak of the High 

 Peak, nearly two thousand feet above the sea-level, the Ring- Ouzels rear 

 their young. The plateau on the summit of this wild mountain, the view 

 from which is one of the finest in the north of England, is intersected by 

 deep watercourses, the principal ones worn down to the solid rock, but 

 the greater part of them mere trenches in the peat alone, too wide to jump 

 across, and destitute of the least trace of vegetation. The innumerable 

 islands which lie in this network of " groughs," as they are locally called, 

 are covered with heath, bilberry, crowberry, clusterberry, and, in some 

 places, with cranberry, bearberry, and cloudberry. The latter plant is the 

 great feature of the wild Siberian tundras, the " maroshka " of the Russians, 

 and the " molteberre " of the Norwegians. But the botanist is not the 

 only one who finds an interest here. Bird-hfe is on every side ; and the 

 handsome " Torr-Ouzel," as the peasant lads and herdsmen call hiiu, lives 

 in company with the Red Grouse, the Curlew, the Peewit, and the Golden 

 Plover, which also breed in this wild upland solitude. 



The Ring-Ouzel is a shy and wary bird, rarely allowing the observer 

 to approach it within gunshot, except when its nest is in danger. The 



