but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen these birds
myself); but last week, the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large dock,
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 counties. 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 63 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 discoveries reach at