278 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



tudinous restlessness in bird life. The nests in the garden 

 that were the centre of so much busy life have been deserted 

 and sodden for months past ; but now the regret that they 

 inspired is effaced by the fresh purpose of a new epoch. 

 The drowsy period of late summer and early autumn is past, 

 and the loss of the summer birds is more than half made 

 good by the coming of the roving winter flocks. 



Redwings arrive at much the same date as fieldfares, but 

 are less conspicuous, and therefore less likely to attract 

 immediate attention. The fieldfare resembles the larger and 

 wilder missel-thrush, the redwing the smaller and quieter 

 song-thrush. Both are gregarious birds, but redwings less 

 frequently break up into small parties. Their flocks pass 

 hurriedly overhead with an occasional single piping note 

 and a flight only slightly undulating ; fieldfares flit with a 

 loose, flapping flight, rising and falling in careless motion, 

 and constantly uttering their characteristic note ' chak-chak- 

 chak.' Redwings prefer to feed on the open turf of the 

 pastures, where they collect a prey of insects and slugs ; but 

 though fieldfares also feed in the grass fields, often mingling 

 with starlings and jackdaws to pick a living, they are fonder 

 of the hawthorn and holly berries. They will descend on a 

 red hawthorn bush in November and keep rising and settling 

 in alternate appetite and alarm in much the same way as 

 smaller parties of missel-thrushes raid the ripe berries of a 

 mountain-ash or garden cotoneaster in October. They can 

 be distinguished from missel-thrushes by the conspicuous 

 slaty patch on the lower part of the back, where the missel- 

 thrush has a patch of pale brown, and by the dark grey 

 wing-feathers, which contrast sharply with the lighter patch. 

 The cries of the two birds are also quite distinct, though 

 manifestly belonging to the same family. The irregular 

 jarring screech or chatter of the missel- thrush is easily dis- 



