PASSERES. ( 18 ) TURDIDJE. 



THE FIELDFARE. 



FELTYFARE, FELDYPAR, FELTYFLEER, GREY THRUSH. 



Turdus pilaris. 



Where are your haunts, ye helpless birds of song, 

 IVhett winter's clojidy wing begins to shade 

 The emptied fields ; when ripe?iing sloes assume 

 Their deepest jet, and wild plums purple hang 

 Tempting, yet harsh till mellowed by the frost ? 

 Ah, now ye sit crowding upon the thorns. 

 Beside your former homes, all desolate, 

 A?id filled with withered leaves ; while Fieldfare flocks 

 From distant lands alight, and, chirping, fiy 

 Frotn hedge to hedge, fearful of mati s approach. 



Grahame, Birds of Scotland. 



The first flocks of the Fieldfare generally arrive in the 



Merse about the end of October or beginning of November, 



and their appearance in our pasture fields is one of the 



many signs which we then have of the approach of winter, 



with its frosts and snows. Chaucer, in his Assemhh of 



Fo^des, associates this bird with the characteristic weather of 



the winter season, for he- calls it the " Frostie Feldefare," 



and Grahame, in his British Georgics, says — 



If, 'mid the tassels of the leafless ash, 



A Fieldfare flock alight, for early frosts prepare. 



It comes to us chiefly from Norway and other northern 

 countries of Europe, where it spends the summer, and nests 

 on the pine and birch trees in colonies. 



After its arrival here, and as long as the weather is mild, 

 it may be seen feeding in considerable flocks on our pasture 



