Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/224

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My knowledge of this species has not been acquired to any exceeding extent in Leicestershire, though sundry authors in giving a list of the counties in which it has been known to breed do not exclude the shire which is chiefly famous for Fox-hunting. I have certainly met with the Ring-Ousel in the county on the spring and autumn migrations, but of course its true breeding places are the upland wastes and the wild and rocky districts in more mountainous parts of the country.

Leaving the cultivated lowlands and the civilization of village communities behind me one April morning during the spring of 1894, I started on a nesting tramp into the mountains between Festiniog and Dolgelly, my object being to spend an hour or so with the Ring-Ousel, and to get as far as Blaenlliw, a farm about five miles distant from the Llanuwchllyn end of Bala lake, tenanted by the kindest and most hospitable of people, and, what was infinitely more to my purpose, situated right in the heart of the mountains of North Wales—"right away from everywhere," as it was succinctly described to me. It was a charming morning, and for the first mile my course lay by the side of the river Lliw, where I had occasional visions of Common Sandpipers flitting to and fro, while here and there a Grey Wagtail, or a Pied Flycatcher, or a Dipper caught my eye. After passing the gold-mine, Carn Dochan by name, I began to rise the high ground, and a walk of another mile or so brought me nearer to the haunts of the Ring-Ousel, whose home in the summer is essentially a wild and romantic one. From the summit of the rock-strewn hill between Carn Dochan and Arenig a magnificent view of some of the surrounding country was unfolded to my gaze, while the Blackbird's mellow notes, which I had listened