L58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



they had resorted for food." Similar accounts reached me from 

 N. Aberdeenshire [Pitsligo], and various other localities. Above 

 fifty were caught in one garden in Stirling by boys. The 

 same is reported by Mr. George Sim from Aberdeenshire ; hf Mr. 

 Robert Service, Dumfries ; Mr. Brotherston, Kelso ; and almost 

 universally. The deaths must have been enormously large. Mr. 

 Maloch found a great many Fieldfares and Redwings dead. 

 "There is a small island with a tower built upon it in the middle 

 of the Tay at Broughty Ferry. Inside the tower the ground was 

 almost covered with dead Fieldfares and Redwings, they having 

 gone in for shelter and died. " A supposed instance of the nesting 

 of the Redwing this summer in England is given in the Zoologist for 

 November. 



BLACKBIRD. 



TlJRDUS MERULA, Lift. 



Even Blackbirds are reported to have left many localities 

 entirely, or to have greatly decreased in numbers. One pied 

 Blackbird, Mr. Gurney writes me, " which had migrated before, 

 however, preferred this time to remain and brave it out; and at last 

 he came to the window to be fed, and at length allowed himself to 

 be fed regularly" [J. H. G., in lit., 30th January, 1879]. At 

 Dunipace we had five Blackbirds which we fed regularly at the 

 door all through the winter, but the silence of the cold sprhig of 

 1879 — few bird-voices being heard — indicated a decrease in numbers. 

 A few dead Blackbirds are reported from several localities, but 

 they do not seem to have suffered to the same extent as Redwings 

 and Fieldfares. A few were found dead by the sides of walls at 

 Oldcambus. One Blackbird here lost its tail, which became 

 frozen to the snow while it was being fed. Five of the feathers I 

 picked up, bound together by a lump of frozen snow. The bird 

 was afterwards seen flying about. Blackbirds remained scarcer 

 than usual throughout the summer, except at localities on the 

 west coast. 



WHITE'S THRUSH. 



Turdus varius, P alias. 



" One was shot at Hardacrcs, near Kelso [in last week of 

 December, 1878]. Unhappily, the young farmer who shot the 

 bird did not know its value, but partially skinned and ate the 

 treasure, the wings and head and throat only being preserved to 



