90 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



search of food, sometimes challenging danger by entering 

 gardens in search of fruit, e.g., near Alston; elsewhere content 

 to feed on wild berries, as, for example, those which hang in 

 gay festoons from the branches of the rowan-tree in such 

 situations as Honiter Pass. They leave us at the end of Sep- 

 tember. Some birds may linger into October, but I have not 

 as yet obtained any proof that the Ring Ouzel winters in Lake- 

 land. I have sometimes remarked with surprise upon the pre- 

 cision with which the Ring Ouzel repairs direct to its breeding- 

 ground, rarely appearing on our lower grounds even on vernal 

 migration. There are of course exceptions to this. Thus in 

 1890 a solitary Ring Ouzel made its appearance in a field near 

 Aigle Gill on the 30th of March, and there rested a few days. 

 On the 14th of April the same year Mr. W. Hodgson saw a 

 fine Ring Ouzel on the beach at Workington, which, as he wrote 

 to me, ' might have passed for a common Blackbird, had not 

 his loud tac, tac, tac induced a closer scrutiny, when his white 

 gorget was distinctly seen.' 



WHEATEAR. 



Saxicola cenanthe (L.). 

 This Chat, the first of our spring immigrants, makes its appear- 

 ance almost simultaneously upon our higher fells and the low 

 grounds near the coast, the influx being often noticed over a 

 wide area. Thus in 1888 the Wheatears arrived all along the 

 breadtli of Cumberland, from Wright Green to Gretna, within 

 three days. The first to appear were a few males, which arrived 

 at Aigle Gill on March 28th, followed on March 30th by a fresh 

 influx, this time including both males and females ; at Wright 

 Green a few males were seen on March 30 th, and many had 

 arrived at Skinburness on the morning of the same day. Some 

 few of these birds were observed during the day to cross the 

 Wampool and Waver estuary, and the day following none could 

 be seen, the majority having evidently shifted their quarters 

 during the night ; possibly these were the identical birds that I 

 noticed near Carlisle and Gretna on the 1st of April. At that 

 season many Wheatears haunt the salt marshes of the English 

 Solway, not frequenting the centre of the cattle-run, but flitting 



