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 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 sixty-three 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 present, they seem
much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. --- may find reason to
give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this
extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God
in the creation.

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the _oedicnemus_, or
stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house
these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely
when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return again in
the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several single
birds.

LETTER XXI.

SELBORNE, _Nov. 28th_, 1768.

Dear Sir,--With regard to the _oedicnemus_, or stone-curlew, I intend to
w