268
PASSERAS.
TURDÏDÆ.
TURDID.E.
- V ,
T u e d u s il ia c u s , Linnaeus*.
THE REDWING.
Turdus iliacus.
T h e R e d w in g is a regular winter-visitor to the British
Islands, which comes to us in flocks from Iceland and the
nothern parts of the European continent, frequently arriving
by the middle or before the end of October. While in this
country, it chiefly affects enclosures and parks that are ornamented
with clumps of trees; and, like the Song-Thrush, which
it much resembles in external appearance, it seeks its subsistence
in mild and open weather in pasture-lands and moist
meadows, feeding principally on worms, snails, slugs and
insects. I t is much less inclined to eat berries than most
of the other species of this genus; and should its usual
resources be closed by long-continued frost and snow, the
Redwing is the first among birds to suffer, and during some
severe seasons, such as 1799, 1814, 1822, and the winters
of 1838- 39 and 1860-61, hundreds have been found
* Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 292 (1766).
I I .1 I -A-L_ V II,.!* ....
REDWING. 269
almost starved, alike unable to prosecute their journey further
south to more genial climates, or to hear the rigour of
th is ; though others, perhaps better prepared for travel or
possessing a stronger migratory instinct, extend their flight,
as will he presently seen, to very distant countries.
After the winter is over, the Redwing returns to us and
remains till the gradual advance of the season induces it to
resume its journey northward. Some are almost every year
seen in the British Islands so late as the middle of May ;
and White of Selborne remarks, that iii the very cold and
backward season of 1740 they lingered in Hampshire till
June. Mr. Eyton has noticed a few remaining all the summer
in Shropshire, and the same is said to have been observed
in Aberdeenshire. Cases, though to be regarded with doubt,
have also been recorded of its breeding in this island:
of these perhaps the best authenticated is that mentioned by
Dr. Saxhy, who says (Zool. p. 7427) that in May, 1855, at
Maintwrog in North Wales, he found a Redwing’s nest with
four eggs, upon which he repeatedly saw the b ird ; while
Fleming states that Bullock, in a letter “ dated 23rd April
1819, mentioned the circumstance of its breeding in Harris,
where he had observed it in the preceding summer.”
In Sweden and Norway this bird breeds in the more
elevated parts northward from lat. 57° N., its summer-
haunts being bounded below by the upper zone of the
fir-forests and extending to the limit of the birch trees.
Wolley observed of it in Lapland, as he informed Mr.
Hewitson, that it “ makes its nest near the ground, in an
open part of the wood, generally in the outskirts, on a stump,
a log, or the roots of a fallen tree, sometimes amongst a
cluster of young stems of the birch, usually quite exposed,
so as almost to seem as if placed so purposely, the walls
often supported only by their foundation. The first or coarse
part of their nest is made for the most part of dried bents,
sometimes with fine twigs and moss; this is lined with a
layer of dirt, and then is added a thick bed of fine grass of
the previous year, compactly woven together, which completes
the structure. Outside is often a good deal of the kind of