THE RING-OUZEL. 



Turdus torquatuSy Linnaeus. 

 Plate 2. 



Unlike the Fieldfare and Redwing, the Ring-Ouzel is a summer visitor to our 

 islands, arriving in April, about the time the others leave us. Passing through the 

 cultivated country, it makes its home among the rocky hillsides and high moorlands. 

 It breeds in many districts in England, Wales, and Ireland, while it is common in 

 Scotland in places suited to its habits. Abroad the Ring-Ouzel breeds in Northern 

 Europe, migrating to spend the winter in the countries by the Mediterranean. 



The nest, which is very like the Blackbird's, is placed under a bank or over- 

 hanging rock, and contains four, or occasionally five, eggs, bluish-green in 

 ground colour, blotched and speckled with reddish-brown. 



The food consists of worms, grubs, and insects, varied at times with fruit and 

 berries, especially those of the rowan-tree. 



The Ring-Ouzel has a wild and sweet song, harmonising well with his surround- 

 ings, as he delivers it from some crag or stone on the mountainside. The female 

 is duller in colour than the male, and has a less conspicuous gorget. A race of the 

 Ring-Ouzel, the Turdus alpestris of C. L. Brehm, having the pale margins to the 

 feathers on the underparts broader than those in our bird, and marked in the centre 

 with white, has twice or thrice occurred in England. This form inhabits the 

 mountains of Southern and Central Europe. 



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