II) F I E L D F A R E .
soon as there are the earliest symptoms of a change, nay, even
before we can perceive any, they begin to return to their former
quarters, and therewith to their previous shyness, which dire necessity
alone had for the time overcome. If the snow continues long upon
the ground, so that their needful supply is exhausted before their
ordinary food can be again obtained, thousands are starved to death
through the joint wasting of hunger and cold. Sir William Jardine
exactly describes their manner when suffering from severity. Then,
when alarmed, as he says, instead of the alert rising night, and the loud
chatter of prosperity, they weakly flutter off to the nearest cover,
and will scarcely again betake themselves to flight. Some are said
to remain in this country to breed. Mr. Alhs, in his 'Catalogue of
the Birds of Yorkshire,' already referred to. mentions one such
instance as having occurred at Lepton, near Quddersfield, in the
West-Riding, and says, that several more cases of the like kind have
occurred in that neighbourhood. Other instances are also said to
have been known in this country.—A nest has been found, it
is related, in Kent, and some obtained in Scotland; two are also recorded
by the editor of ' Pennant's British Zoology.* In the Orkney
Islands a few occasionally stay during the whole year, but none
have ever been known to breed there.
They go in large flocks, frequently of several hundreds, ami
commonly in parties of not less than thirty or forty together;
occasionally, however, two or three seem to withdraw from the main
body, and frequent some quiet and retired hedgerow in company
with the Blackbird and the Thrush. 'Their thought may be to remain
to breed, but for the most part, from some cause or other, it
is doomed to be an abortive one. They are sometimes rather
* quarrelsome when engaged in feeding on a common crop. They roost
both in trees and on the ground, and in bushes near the latter, or,
' vice versa' on the ground near hedges, but for the most part in
the former, in some parts of the country at all events. They often
associate with the Redwing, as also with the Missel 'Thrush and the
Throstle. They arc said to be not at all shy in the breeding-season
in their native countries, but in fact all birds' natures are then temporarily
altered more or less in this respect. They are capable of
being kept in confinement.
The Might of this species is easy and somewhat slow, performed with
slight but rather lengthened undulations, the effect of a series of
about a dozen pulsations of the wings, with then as it were an intermission
of the effort. While thus proceeding, they utter their wild
crj until about to settle, when, after wheeling about for a short
FIELDFARE. 47
time, they alight. ' After settling,' says Mr. Macgillivray, (each is
seen to stand still with its wings close, but a little drooping, its tail
slightly declined, and its head elevated. It then hops rapidly a few
steps forward, stops, picks up a seed, an insect, or other article of
food, and again proceeds. They generally move in the same direction,
always facing the wind if it be high, and those in the rear,
especially if left far behind, fly up to the front. When alarmed,
they all stand still for a short time, some utter a low scream, and
presently all fly off to a distance, or alight on the tall trees in the
neighbourhood. There they sit gracefully on the twigs, with their
tails declined, and generally with their heads all directed one way,
unless they have settled for the purpose of resting or amusing
themselves after procuring a sufficiency of food. On the ground they
have a habit at times of flirting the tail up every now and then,
when hopping along. In fine weather they often enact a concert of
long duration, which, although their song is neither loud nor very
melodious, is very pleasant.1
The Fieldfare feeds on a variety of food—oats and grain of different
kinds, snails, beetles and other insects, caterpillars, chrysalides, worms,
ami grass, berries, such as those of the hawthorn, the barberry, the
juniper, the mountain ash, the blackberry, the wild rose, the rose, the
ivy, and the holly, and even turnips in extremity, to which latter
they do considerable damage, by rendering them exposed, through
their depredations, to the action of the weather. Insect food, however,
is that which they prefer, and when the season has been favourable
to the ripening of the hawthorn berries, and they hang in wcll-ripencd
clusters on the sprays, a comely and a beautiful sight, they tempt
the bird to forsake the ground for the leafless hedge, even when
other food may be to be found elsewhere, and no stress of weather
compels to it. W hen it does, they will come even into gardens near
houses to feed on berries, though usually so extremely shy: at such
times too the borders of streams are much frequented by them, on
account of the thaw there produced by the higher temperature of
the water. 'They swallow also a small quantity of fragments of stone,
to aid the triturition of their food.
Their song, which is soft and melodious, is sometimes heard so early
as the end of February and the beginning of March, if the season
has been mild and propitious.
Their alarm note is a 'yack,' or 'chack, chack, chack,' which whenever
heard arrests your attention. 'They have also a harsh chatter.
Fieldfares build in societies, as many as two hundred nests and
upwards having been found within a small circuit of the forest. The