OF 8ELB0RNE, 
71 
notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstance to you in 
my letter of JSTovember the 4t]i, 1767 : (you however paid 
but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen these 
birds myself :) but last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a 
large flock, twenty or thirty, of these birds, shot two cocks 
and two hens : and says, on recollection, that he remembers 
to have observed these birds again last spring, about Lady- 
day, as it were, on their return to the north. Now per- 
haps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of England, 
but belong to the more northern parts of Europe ; and may 
retire before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those 
parts; and return to breed in the spring, when the cold 
abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a new bird 
of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the writers 
are silent : but if these birds should prove the ousels of the 
north of England, then here is a migration disclosed within 
our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not yet 
appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island 
to the south ; but it is most probable that they usually do^ 
or else one cannot suppose that they would have continued 
so long unnoticed in the southern countries. The ousel is 
larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn 
(when there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the 
spring it feeds on ivy-berries, which ripen only at that 
season, in March and April. 
I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately 
on the study of reptiles) that my people, every now and 
then, of late, draw up with a bucket of water from my well, 
which is sixty-three feet deep, a large black warty lizard 
with a fin tail and yellow belly.^ How they first came 
down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got 
out thence without help, is more than I am able to say. 
My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in 
the examination of a buck's head. As far as your dis- 
coveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate my 
suspicions ; and I hope Mr. may find reason to give 
his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may 
This is Triton palustris; as to the "fia-tair' see note, p. 68. — Ed. 
