a 
’ 
ww? 
< 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. ° 85 
We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels 
every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring- 
ousels were seen at Christmas, 1770, in the forest of Bere, on 
the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude 
that their migrations are only internal, and not extended to 
the continent southward, if they do at first come at all from 
the northern parts of this island only, and not from the north 
of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the 
fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they 
have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Naviga- 
tors mention that in the isle of Ascension, and other such 
desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human 
form that they settle on men’s shoulders; and have no more 
dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was 
grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that 
about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that 
town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one after- 
noon ; he added further, that some had appeared since in every 
autumn ; but he could not find that any had been observed 
before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have 
found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all 
along the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and 
bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the autumn 
of 1770. 
LETTER XXXIX. 
SELBORNE, /Vov. gth, 1773. 
As you desire me to send you such observations as may 
occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that 
you may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or 
reject what I here advance in your intended new edition of 
the British Zodvlogy. 
