FIELDFARE. 273 



tree, whence, if af^aiu disturbed, they wheel off in a body as 

 before. Should the weather become very severe, they leave 

 us to go further south, and are again seen on their return ; 

 then frequenting, as before, the open fields, and often re- 

 maining until the middle of May, when they depart for 

 their northern breeding-places. White of Selborne says that 

 in the cold spring of 1740 they lingered till the beginning of 

 June ; and Mr. J. H. Ellis states (Zool. p. 9248) that a l)ird 

 of this species was killed in Leicestershire July 29th, 18G4. 

 Some suj^posed instances of the Fieldfare breeding in this 

 country have been recorded ; but not one that seems to be 

 free from reasonable doubt. Mr. Hewitson, who was the 

 first Englishman to publish from his own observation an 

 account of the Fieldfiire's nidificatiou as noticed in Norway, 

 during the summer of 1833, by himself and his fellow- 

 travellers, Mr. John Hancock and Mr. Benjamin Johnson, 

 thus describes its habits, saying that, after a long ramlde 

 through thick woods, "our attention was attracted by the 

 harsh cries of several birds, which we at first supposed must 

 be Shrikes, but which afterwards proved to be Fieldfares, 

 anxiously watching over their newly-established dwellings, 

 we were soon delighted by the discovery of several of their 

 nests, and were surprised to find them (so contrary to the 

 habits of other species of the genus Tiirdus with which we 

 are acquainted) breeding in society. Their nests were at 

 various heights from the ground, from four to thirty, or forty 

 feet or upwards, mixed with old ones of the preceding year ; 

 they were, for the most part, placed against the trunk of the 

 spruce fir, some were, however, at a considerable distance 

 from it, upon the upper surface and towards the smaller end 

 of the thicker branches ; they resemble most nearly those 

 of the Ring Ouzel ; the outside is composed of sticks, and 

 coarse grass and weeds gathered wet, matted together with a 

 small quantity of clay, and lined with a thick bed of fine dry 

 grass ; none of them yet contained more than three eggs, 

 although we afterwards found that five was more commonly 

 the number than four, and that even six was very frequent." 

 Mr. Hewitson' s information has since been fully corroborated 



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