only a migratory visitor, and М. alpestris is the resident species which breeds there. M. torquata 
is known as a migrant near Gibraltar, according to Colonel Irby (Orn. Gibr. 2nd ed. p. 36), and it 
also visits Northern Africa in winter, having been found in Marocco, Tunis, and Algeria. 
In Seebohm's * History of British Birds” is an excellent account of the habits of the Ring-Ouzel, 
a bird with which he was personally acquainted in England as well as in Scandinavia :— 
“When the Redwing and Ше Егеја аге are on the point of departure from our shores for their 
northern breeding-haunts, the Ring-Ouzel's 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. 
“Тһе 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 flits 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. Тһе 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. Тһе 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. Тһе 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-life is on every side; and the handsome “ lorr-Ouzel, as the peasant lads and herdsmen call 
him, lives in company with the Red Grouse, the Curlew, the Peewit, aud the Golden Plover, which 
also breed in this wild upland solitude. 
« Тће Ring-Ouzel is a shy and wary bird, rarely allowing the observer to approach it within 
gunshot, except when its nest is іп danger. Тһе bird flits before you, ever at a respectable distance, 
and, if repeatedly disturbed, will take itself off with strong rapid flight to some place of safety. 
There is much in the Ring-Ouzel's habits and movements in common with those of the Blackbird,— 
its garrulousness at nightfall, its method of searching for food, its peculiar elevation of the tail 
upon alighting, and its shy, restless, and vigilant disposition, all being characteristic of that coal-black 
chorister. Directly after its arrival on our shores the Ring-Ouzel is sometimes observed in large 
flocks, not unfrequently consisting of several hundred individuals. They remain gregarious for a few 
days, frequenting the marshes and swamps before they pair and distribute themselves over the moors. 
At this season the birds are more vigilant than ever, and, if disturbed, rise like Fieldfares and take 
themselves off to safer and more secluded quarters. 
“The food of the Ring-Ouzel is varied, and is both animal and vegetable. At dawn, or just as 
the evening's mist is stealing up the mountains, you will not unfrequently see him on the wild 
pasture-lands of the upland farms, or on the stretches of marshy grass-land, studded with rush-tufts, 
