OFSELBORNE. 71 
Was not candour and opennefs the veiy life of natural liiftorj^, I 
fhould pafs over this query juft as a fly commentator does over 
a crabbed paflage in a claffic ; but common ingenuoufnefs obliges 
me to confefs, not without fome degree of fliame, that I only rea- 
foned in that cafe from analogy. For as all other autumnal birds 
migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our milder winters, 
and return to the northward again when the rigorous cold abates, 
fo I concluded that the ring-oufels did the fame, as well as their 
congeners the fieldfares ; and efpecially as ring-oufels are known 
to haunt cold mountainous countries : but I have good reafon to 
fufpedt fince that they may come to us from the weftward ; be- 
eaufe I hear, from very good authority, that they breed on 
Dartmore ; and that they forfake that wild diftrixfl about the time 
that our vifitors appear, and do not return till late in the fpring. 
1 have taken a great deal of pains about yom f die aria and mine, 
with a white ftroke over it's eye and a tawny rump. I have fur- 
veyed it aHve and dead, and have procured feveral fpecimens ; 
and am perfeftly perfuaded myfelf (and truft you will foon be 
convinced of the fame) that it is no more nor lefs than the 
pq(Jer arundinaceus fuinor of Ray. This bird, by fome means or other, 
feems to be entirely omitted In the BritiJJo Zoology ; and one reafon 
probably was becaufe it is fo ftrangely claffed in Ray, who ranges 
it among his picis affines. It ought no doubt to have gone among 
his avicida caudd umcolore, and among your ilender-billed fmall 
birds of the fame divifion. Lim^us might with great propriety 
have put it into his genus of motacilla ; and the motacilla falicaria of 
his fauna fuecica feems to come the neareft to it. It is no uncom- 
mon bird, haunting the fides of ponds and rivers where there is 
covert, and the reeds and fedges of moors. The country people 
in fome places call it \ihe fedge-bini It fings inceffantly night and 
dajr 
