Nesting of the Fieldfare, Etc. 219 



showintj the nest to my father-in-law, who is a member of the 

 \ . T. C she flew straig'ht at liis face. It was most amiising to 

 see him evade the attack, and I con^'ratiilated him on the efficient 

 way in which he carried ont the instructions of his officers as 

 to taking cover when in face of the enemy. At another time 

 when 1 was passini^' near the nest, she pitched on my bare head 

 and went for me tooth and nail. I thou.^ht from these demons- 

 trations that she would be sure to prove a good mother. But 

 alas! the contrary was the case, for. after a.gain laying four 

 eggs, she declined to sit at all. In justce to the bird, I must say 

 that on the day she laid her last egg, we had no less than 35/j 

 inches of rain in the twenty four hours, and this I think gave her 

 a chill, as she looked very ill for several days after. A week or 

 two later both birds went into moult. 



The Rkdwixg. — Their closely allied congener the Red- 

 wing is a much shyer bird, and it spends most of its time on or 

 near the grotmd. They visit us in the winter in very large num- 

 bers, and, to the castial observer, are simply rather small 

 thrushes. However, a closer look shows them to have a very 

 much shorter tail than the Song Thrush. In the winter the so 

 called redwing, which is really a red flank, is only noticeable 

 when the bird is flying. Their breeding grounds lie still further 

 north than those of the Fieldfare, many of them bringing up 

 their young in the treeless districts of the far north. Their nests 

 there are built upon the ground. The writer saw young birds in 

 I>apland in the month of August, that had evidently l)een bred in 

 a thicket of dwarf willows. In my aviary my birds nested early 

 in June. Unfortunately, I can give no particulars, as they must 

 have gone about their building very unobstrusively. My atten- 

 tion was first called to them one morning by seeing the old 

 birds flying about a spruce fir, in a state of great agitation. I 

 arrived just in time to see a large snake disappearing into the 

 grass. I then found the nest placed low down ii>the tree. It 

 was empty, the snake having evidently robbed it. It was a good 

 deal smaller than a thrush's, and not mud lined, being finished 

 off in this respect like a blackbird's. It was unlucky that I did 

 not find it eadier, as I should have liked to have been able to 

 describe the eggs. I hoped that they would have again gone to 

 nest, but they did not do so, although I frequently saw the cock 



