further to the northwards it breeds at all altitudes above the level of the sea, and is found especially
on the islands inside the polar circle. I t occurs in East Finmark; but it is uncertain whether
it breeds there or not. In spring and autumn it visits the lowlands and remains here and there
(as, for instance, at Christiania) through the winter . . . . In the western part of the country it
appears generally to build on the ground, and in the eastern fells in low trees or bushes.
My own experience in Sundalen is that it only occasionally nests on the lower grounds, in severe
seasons such as that of 1899, when the snow remained very late on the mountains, and many of the
eld-nesting birds, such as Mealy Redpolls, Bramblings, and Ring-Ouzels, reared their young in the
valleys. The upper birch-woods, where the two former species love to nest, were comparatively
deserted by them, and as a consequence they appeared in numbers at lower elevations. The Ring-
Ouzel, however, though breeding at lesser heights than in previous years, was not to be driven from
his beloved fjelds by a little extra snow, and so its nest was found not only in the valley but also on
the snow-line, and it is probable that only after severe winters is the Ring-Ouzel driven to breed
away from the alpine zone. Messrs. F. and P. Godman found it nesting in the mountains near
Bodo. Mr. Henry Pearson and Mr. E. Bid well noticed the species in the Porsanger Fjord (Ibis,
1894, p. 228), and in Russian Lapland Mr. Pearson says it was observed in the birch-scrub near his
camp, but none were seen inland (Ibis, 1896, p. 207). Dr. Pleske, in his work on the birds of the
Kola Peninsula, observes The Ring-Ouzel has been found plentifully in Russian Lapland by
Lilljeborg at Schuetzkaja, and Mela appears, on the strength of this record, to have regarded the
species as an inhabitant of the Murman coast. Lagus has observed it in Kunsama, and Von Wright
between Aavasaksa and the river Tengelio. In East Finland it has been frequently met with,
having been already recorded by Leem and Hammer, and more recently by Schrader, who observed it
about harvest-time in the vicinity of the Varanger Fjord. According to Sommerfeldt it occurred
only in the summer. The nest was first taken in 1875 by Nordvis on the Varanger Fjord, and
Westerlund further records the nesting of the species on the island of Fuglo. The vertical range
of the Ring-Ouzel extends to the line of perpetual snow, where it prefers the upper part of the
sub-alpine region, where Betula nana flourishes, or is found in stony districts sparsely covered
with moss.”
Seebohm writes as follows If As the species is not recorded from Archangel, and Harvie-
Brown and I did not meet with it in the valley of the Petchora, we may almost assume that rocks
are indispensable to the Ring-Ouzel.” The breeding-area of the species appears therefore to be
limited almost to the British Islands and Scandinavia, for although, according to Schlegel, a few
may breed in Holland, the nesting of the true M. torquata in Central Europe is not confirmed, and
Mr. Hartert gives me the following note :—| In Germany, according to the observations of the most
reliable observers, the Ring-Ouzel is known to occur principally during the autumn migration,
especially in September and October. I t is more frequently met with in the western districts than
in the eastern, and is not so often noticed in spring, i. e. March and April. It does not nest
anywhere in Germany.” To Heligoland and Borkum the species comes as a spring and autumn
migrant, and it also passes through Denmark.
In other parts of Europe the Ring-Ouzel is known chiefly as a migrant, and the British Museum
has specimens from the Vosges Mountains, Mentone, and Italy. Of its occurrence in the last-named
country, Count Arrigoni degli Oddi writes to me :—1 I t is mostly of rare and irregular appearance in
Italy during the cold season; it is more numerous when the winter is severe, and is more generally
observed in the northern portions of Italy. I t is, however, certainly a resident species in the
Piedmontese Alps, as I possess four specimens from Lanzo—three adult birds shot in April and May of
1897, and a very young bird procured on the 1st of August in the same year.” In the Sierra Nevada
in Spain Mr. Howard Saunders has procured both species of Ring-Ouzel, but M. torquata is doubtless
only a migratofy visitor, and M. alpestris is the resident species which breeds there. M. torquata
is known as a migrant near Gibraltar, according to Colonel Irby (Orn. Gibr. 2nd ed. p. 86), and it
also visits Northern Africa in winter, having been found in Marocco, Tunis, and Algeria.
In Seebohm’s ‘ History of British Birds’ is an excellent account o f the habits of the Ring-Ouzel,
a bird with which he was personally acquainted in England as well as in Scandinavia:—
“ When the Redwing and the Fieldfare are on the point of departure from our shores for their
northern breeding-haunts, the Ring-Ouzel’s bold and defiant cries are first heard, and his song, carried
hither and thither over the moorlands by the breeze, sounds wild and.sweet as, tempered by distance,
it greets our ear as the bird sits wary and watchful on the highest pinnacle of some projecting rock.
Impelled by resistless impulse, this handsome Ouzel has again sought the solitudes of the moors
for the purpose of rearing its young, arriving towards the end of March or early in April.
“ The Ring-Ouzel is a somewhat remarkable bird ; for although not the only migratory British
Thrush, still it is the only Thrush that visits our country for the purpose of rearing its young ; and,
in addition to this, it is the only Thrush that principally confines itself to the upland wilds. A true
bird of the wilderness, it prefers the deepest solitudes that our land affords. Truly, indeed, the
Ring-Ouzel’s home is a wild and romantic one. You will first make his acquaintance where the heath
begins, where the silver birch trees are scattered amongst the rock-fragments, and the gorse bushes
and stunted thorns and bracken are the last signs of more lowland vegetation. The scenery gets
wilder, but still the bird is your companion; he flits from rock to rock before you, or, by making
long detours, returns to the place whence you flushed him, uttering his loud, harsh, and discordant
call-notes. The hiUs of Derbyshire are one of his favourite haunts: almost on the very summit of
Kinder Scout, the highest peak of the High Peak, nearly two thousand feet above the sea-level, the
Ring-Ouzels rear their young. The plateau on the summit of this wild mountain, the view from
which is one of the finest in the north of England, is intersected by deep watercourses, the principal
ones worn down to the solid rock, but the greater part of them mere trenches in the peat alone, too
widb to jump across, and destitute of the least trace of vegetation. The innumerable islands which
lie in this network of ‘ groughs,’ as they are locally called, are covered with heath, bilberry,
crowberry, clusterberry, and, in some places, with cranberry, bearberry, and cloudberry. The latter
plant is the great feature of the wild Siberian tundras, the ‘ maroshka ’ of the Russians, and the
* molteberre ’ of the Norwegians. But the botanist is not the only one who finds an interest here.
Bird-life is on every side; and the handsome ‘ Torr-Ouzel,’ as the peasant lads and herdsmen call
him, lives in company with the Red Grouse, the Curlew, the Peewit, and the Golden Plover, which
also breed in this wild upland solitude.
“ The Ring-Ouzel is a shy and wary bird, rarely allowing the observer to approach it within
gunshot, except when its nest is in danger. The bird flits before you, ever at a respectable distance,
and, if repeatedly disturbed, will take itself off with strong rapid flight to some place of safety.
There is much in the Ring-Ouzel’s habits and movements in common with those of the Blackbird,—
its garrulousness at nightfall, its method of searching for food, its peculiar, elevation of the tail
upon alighting, and its shy, restless, and vigilant disposition, all being characteristic of that coal-black
chorister. Directly after its arrival on our shores the Ring-Ouzel is sometimes observed in large
flocks, not unfrequently consisting of several hundred individuals. They remain gregarious for a few
days, frequenting the marshes and swamps before they pair and distribute themselves over the moors.
At this season the birds are more vigilant than ever, and, if disturbed, rise like Fieldfares and take
themselves off to safer and more secluded quarters.
“ The food of the Ring-Ouzel is varied, and is both animal and vegetable. At dawn, or just as
the evening’s mist is stealing up the mountains, you will not unfrequently see him on the wild
pasture-lands of the upland farms, or on the stretches of marshy grass-land, studded with rush-tufts,