110 TURDUS PILARIS. 



three species the Redwing seems to be the least shy, and the 

 Missel Thrush the most so, but all are very easily alarmed. 

 The Song Thrush is the tamest of the genus, and next to it 

 the Blackbird, but these species are not gregarious, even in 

 severe weather. When the ground is covered with snow the 

 Fieldfares betake themselves to marshy meadows, where they 

 are often shot in great numbers ; for, although repeatedly 

 annoyed, they return at short intervals, and joersons stationed 

 here and there along the hedges are sure of obtaining many 

 chances. The irrigated meadows to the w^est of Edinburgh 

 are a favourite place of resort to all our Thrushes in frosty 

 weather. On the 19th January 1835, I there shot ten Field- 

 fares, five Redwings, four Song Thrushes, and four Blackbirds. 

 Should the pools and brooks be frozen, they repair to the woods 

 and hedges, where they obtain a supply of hawthorn, holly, 

 and other berries. 



The food of the Fieldfare during winter and spring consists 

 of berries of various kinds, worms, larvse, pupae, and insects, 

 as well as seeds of cereal and other plants. I have never seen 

 it in cornyards however, even in the most severe weather, but 

 it frequently enters gardens in time of snow to eat the holly 

 berries. It employs a small quantity of fragments of quartz 

 and other hard substances to aid the trituration of its food. 



Having neglected to note the alarm cry of this bird, I sought 

 an opportunity of supplying the deficiency during a snow storm 

 in March 1837, when I fell in with a great number of Field- 

 fares and Song Thrushes, with three Lapwings, busily engaged 

 in searching for food in a piece of marshy ground that remained 

 uncovered. The Fieldfares when flying off uttered a chuckling 

 cry, resembling the syllables yack^ chuck, chuck.) chuck. 



If the weather be fine, they generally disappear about the 

 middle of April ; but I have several times met with flocks in 

 May. Thus, on Friday the 6th May 1836, I saw a flock of 

 about twenty Fieldfares in East Lothian, about half way between 

 Salton and Tranent. Mr Edward Lambert, in the Linnsean 

 Transactions, Vol. Ill, p. 12, states that the latest Fieldfare 

 he " ever saw was on the 1st of May in Dorsetshire, and the 

 earliest on the 29th of September." The Reverend Messrs 



