Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve
days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the
other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not more probable
that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps
sandbank, lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say),
may become their hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and
obvious retreat?
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.
Navigators 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.
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