192 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



rowan, will shake to bits every cluster of fruit thereon. 

 The ground beneath is strewn with scarlet berries ; but 

 never a bird troubles to pick these up. They are left for 

 the field-mice, while our friends move on to finish the 

 currants. 



Though I mentioned the blackbird as prominent 

 among the September seafarers, yet, as a species, it is also 

 conspicuously sedentary. This paradox is explained by 

 there co-existing both a migratory and a stationary race 

 of Turdus merula. The latter section breed and remain 

 here throughout the year. Indeed, during the coldest and 

 most protracted winters on the moors, we still have black- 

 birds in the Borderland ; when never a thrush is to be 

 seen, and when the only other small birds that withstand 

 the extreme severity of winter, are the dippers, robins, 

 wrens, bullfinches, tits, hedge-sparrows, and a few others. 

 Then again, the blackbird is stationary in the far south 

 of Europe, remaining to breed even in the heat of 

 Andalusia. 



The number of these stationary residents in Spain is, 

 however, vastly increased by arrivals from the north in 

 October and November — at which period those very 

 wanderers, some of which we have just been noticing in 

 our own root-crops in September, make their appearance 

 throughout Continental Europe. In Belgium and France, 

 the advent of the thrushes is looked for as we look for that 

 of woodcock and the chasse aux grives is an institution 

 with the village fowler. Southern Spain is reached in 

 October, and occupied till March, when the bird-travellers 

 return north. Of our local birds that come within this 

 category, I may mention, besides the blackbird, thrushes 

 of both species, starlings, greenfinches, skylarks, and 

 titlarks. The fieldfare seldom reaches so far to the south- 



