OF SELBORNE. 167 
from the conclusion of wheat-sowing to the season 
of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for 
larks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock 
and congregate as much in the very dead of winter 
as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs 
and harrows. 
Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks 
aud fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to 
cross the seas, and to retire to some districts more 
suitable to the purpose of hatching their young. 
That the former pair before they retire, | myseif, 
when | was a sportsman, have often experienced. 
It cannot indeed be denied but that now and then 
we hear of a woodcock’s nest, or young birds, dis. 
covered in some part or other of this island; but 
then they are always mentioned as rarities, and 
somewhat out of the common course of things ; but 
as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or 
naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, pretended 
to have found the nest or young of those species in 
any part of these kingdoms. And | the more ad- 
mire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all 
appearance, the same food in summer as well as in 
winter might support them here which maintains 
their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did 
they choose to stay the summer through. From 
hence it appears that it is not food alone which 
determines some species of birds with regard to 
their stay or departure. Fieldfares and redwings 
disappear sooner or later, according as the warm 
weather comes on earlier or later; for I well re- 
member, after that dreadful winter 1739-40, that 
cold northeast winds continued to blow on through 
April and May, and that these kinds of birds (what 
