NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 403 
then dried slowly; they can afterwards be damped and mixed 
up in the birds' food. Dried ants' eggs, as sold at t]ie bird- 
shops, might serve tlie same purpose. AVhen birds are on 
board ship and want green meat, mustard and cress seeds 
should be grown on the waste sand from the cages. Mr. 
Clarence Bartlett lately went to India Avith a large number of 
birds. 
EiXG-OuSEL, p. 109.— The Eing-Ousel," writes Mr. G. Xapier, 
"breeds, in April, in the northern and more elevated parts of 
England and Scotland, as ISTorthumberland, Yorkshire, and the 
Cheviot Hills. The nest resembles that of the blackbird, but is 
more usually built on the ground, and amongst the heather or 
cliffs, than the nest of the blackbird. The eggs greatly resemble 
those of the blackbird, but are usually a good deal smaller. They 
have a larger proportion of ash-coloured spots than is common 
with eggs of the blackbird ; but some varieties resemble them 
exactly, so that it would not be safe to discriminate between the 
species from mere appearance. The same may be said of the 
eggs of the redwing and fieldfare." 
The Eing-Ousel has been sometimes known to breed near 
Derby; they are wonderful birds for mountain-ash berries; 
they come from the north of Scotland ; they are found in 
small flocks, feeding with red-wings, thrushes, and black- 
birds, on any kind of berry from October to March ; their 
habits are the same as those of the blackbird ; they breed in 
Xorvvay and Sweden ; they are caught, as a rule, off the moun- 
tain-ash ; they are not uncommon in winter months ; the eggs 
are scarce in this country. It has been stated that the ring-ouzel 
departs at the end of October. Mr. Davy says that every year 
he has the ring-ouzel brought to him up to Christmas, and also 
in the early spring ; he concludes that they ren}ain here with 
blackbirds and thrushes all the winter. Mr. Edon, curator of 
my fish museum and taxidermist, informs me that the ring-ouzel 
is very common about Castletown or Castleton, the peak of 
Derbyshire. " I was once collecting ferns on the Winnits — a 
name given to some rocks standing between Maur Tor, or the 
Shivering Mountain, and the Devil's Hole — it was there amongst 
these rocks that I first saw and heard the ring-ouzel ; it is very 
common there. I have only once known it to be seen in 
the neighbourhood of London and that was about four years 
ago, when I had one, a female, brought to me ; it was shot in 
the neighbourhood of Kilburn Park." The ring-ouzel is said to 
breed every year in the west of Somerset, in the Exmoor part 
of the county, and in Devonshire, both on Exmoor and Dartmoor. 
