FIELDFARE 11 



is five or six, but seven and even eight occur and occasionally full sets 

 of only three or four are found. Jourdain (1938) gives the measure- 

 ments of 100 eggs as: Average 28.8 by 20.9 mm.; maximum, 33.5 by 

 23.4 mm.; minimum, 25.5 by 21 and 29.5 by 19 mm. Eggs may be 

 found from April in Poland, from the last third of April, but usually 

 in May or June, in Germany, and from May to July in Scandinavia. 



Young. — According to Jourdain incubation often begins with the 

 first egg and is performed by the hen chiefly if not entirely. The 

 period is given by Armberg as 13-14 days. Both sexes feed the young 

 and the fledgling period is given by Jourdain as 14 days. He states 

 that probably a second brood is sometimes reared. The parent birds 

 are bold and noisy in defense of the nest, and I have seen a pair 

 mobbing a hooded crow with considerable effect. Undoubtedly the 

 social breeding habits are an added protection, for intending marauders 

 will be attacked by a number of birds. 



Plumages. — The plumages of the fieldfare are fully described by 

 H. F. Witherby (1938, vol. 2) in the "Handbook of British Birds." 

 The nestling has fairly long and plentiful buff-colored down dis- 

 tributed on the outer and inner supraorbital, occipital, spinal, humeral, 

 and ulnar tracts; it is short on the first of these. The juvenal plumage 

 is not unlike the adult's but a good deal duller, with the head, neck, 

 and rump, which are gray in the adult, washed with brown and with 

 pale shaft streaks to the feathers of the upperparts. After the autumn 

 molt the young birds resemble the adults, though the males have the 

 grays rather browner, and in both sexes the greater coverts generally 

 have whitish tips, which the adults lack. 



Food. — Though largely insectivorous in the broad sense, which 

 generally means feeding on a variety of small invertebrates, the field- 

 fare is a great eater of berries in fall and winter. The flocks may 

 often be seen feasting on berries in the hedgerows, and in places where 

 berry-bearing shrubs are numerous fieldfares may be expected to 

 congregate. 



More precisely, the dietary is summarized as follows by Jourdain 

 (1938, vol. 2): "In winter varied, animal and vegetable: Mollusca 

 (slugs and small land-shells) , Annelida (earthworms) ; insects ; Coleop- 

 tera (Sitona, Otiorrhynchus, Megasternum, Homalota, Quedius, Elater, 

 Curculionidae, Agriotes and larvae), Diptera (larvae of Tipulidae, 

 etc.). Also spiders. Many kinds of berries (hawthorn, holly, rowan, 

 yew, juniper, dog-rose, Pyracantha, etc.). Swedes attacked in hard 

 weather; fallen apples, grain, and some seeds." 



Behavior. — It has been mentioned that the fieldfare is gregarious 

 both in and out of the breeding season. In its winter quarters the 

 flocks lead a wandering existence, roving the fields and hedgerows, 

 often in company with red-winged thrushes. When feeding on grass- 



