43 
NATURAL HlSTOllY OF SELBORNB 
The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male red- 
backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says 
that it might easily have 
escaped his notice, had 
not the outcries and 
chattering of the white- 
throats and other small 
birds drawn his atten- 
tion to the bush where 
it was ; its craw was 
filled with the legs and 
wings of beetles. 
The next rare birds 
(which were procured 
for me last week) were 
some ring-ousels, turdi 
torquati. 
This week twelve 
months a gentleman 
from London, being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and 
found, he told us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries 
some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks : 
a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same ; 
but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I 
mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November the 
4th, 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 perhaps 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 black-bird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when 
there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds 
a very extensive foreign range, as well as British, and in this country frequents, 
during the breeding season, lakes with gravelly margins, or clear rocky streams, 
where it arrives in spring and remains until its broods are ready to remove. It is 
a regular summer visitant, and to the angler is a pleasant companion, enlivening 
the- streams with its shrill whistle, and by its active motions. During winter 
there seems to be a partial as well as general migration, some leaving the country 
altogether, others retiring only to the sea-shores. 
