OUSEL MIGRATION. 
91 
xia and fringilla genera ; and no motacillce, or muscicapce, were 
to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was ob- 
vious enough ; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which 
are easily carried on board ; while the soft-billed birds, which 
are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum 
for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and 
tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collec- 
tions (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of 
some of the most delicate and lively genera. 
I am, &c. 
P LETTER XXXI. To T. PENNANT, Esq. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770. 
You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags; 
and are further assured that they continue resident in those cold 
regions the whole year.* From whence then do our ring-ousels 
migrate so regularly every September, and make their appear- 
ance again, as if in their return, every April? They are more 
early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual 
hill on the fourth of this month. 
An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they fre- 
quent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those 
haunts about the end of September or beginning of October, and 
return again about the end of March. 
Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 
abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called there Tor- 
ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and return in 
spring. This information seems to throw some light on my new 
migration. 
Scopoli's new workf (which I have just procured)' has its 
merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and Car- 
niola. Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I 
think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation 
from the lovers of natural history ; for, as no man can alone in- 
vestigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each 
in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and 
* Selby, and all the recent ornithologists, describe this species to migrate-regularly in autamn. 
1 am, therefore, much inclined to suspect that Mr. Pennaat's inforniants confounded it witb the 
ojmmon dipper {cinchis Europceus) • — En. 
t Anmis Priynus Hislorico-Naiuralis. 
