THE FIELDFARE. 229 
The Fieldfare’s haunts in Britain are varied ones. A thorough wanderer, 
it is seen almost everywhere ; either passing over on its journeyings from 
place to place, or stationary as long as its food is to be obtained. It 
prefers the isolated woods and pastures to shrubberies, although in severe 
weather it is often seen amongst evergreens, in company with the Redwing. 
These birds also frequent the well-cultivated districts, seeking their food 
on the tall hedges; and occasionally a few stragglers come quite close 
to the houses to feed on the hawthorns in the gardens. As long as the 
_ weather keeps open, the Fieldfares seem to shun man’s presence almost 
entirely ; but the first severe fall of snow, the first sharp frost, brings them 
“in” in great numbers. 
The first visit to the breeding-place of the Fieldfare is an event in the 
hfe of an ornithologist never to be forgotten. As you drive along the 
excellent Norwegian roads in the carioles or light gigs of the country, 
through the pine-forests or by the side of the cultivated land near the 
villages, there is little in the bird-life to remind you that you are not in 
one of the mountainous districts of England. As you approach the 
Dovrefjeld, however, the ground rises, the pines become smaller, and the 
hill-sides are sprinkled over with birch trees. Now is the time to look out 
for the Fieldfare. Presently the long watched-for tsak, tsak is heard. You 
tie your horse to the nearest tree, climb the hill-side whence the sound 
came, and presently find yourself in a colony of Fieldfares. The birds 
make a great uproar as you invade their domain, but soon escape beyond 
gunshot, and their distant ¢sak, ¢sak is the only sound you can hear. 
Your natural impulse is to ascend the first tree where you can sce a nest, 
which is almost sure to be placed in the fork of a birch against the trunk 
and the first large branch. Close by are sure to be many more nests, 
some built on the flat horizontal branch of a pine; and outlying nests 
belonging to the colony will be found for some distance all round. 
As you go further north the colonies become smaller; and as the limit 
of forest-growth is approached beyond the Arctic circle, the Fieldfare can 
scarcely be called a gregarious bird. On the tundra, in the absence of 
birch trees or larches, it breeds on the ground, choosing a niche under the 
turf on the edge of a cliff, exactly as the Ring-Ouzel so frequently does. 
In the valley of the Petchora we did not see the Fieldfare north of lat. 68° ; 
but in the valley of the Yenesay I found a nest in lat. 69°, and saw the 
birds up to lat. 70$°; in the former locality it arrived at the Arctic circle 
on the 17th of May, and in the latter on the 8th of June. 
The Fieldfare arrives on our shores a little later than the Redwing—in 
the last week of October, or, perhaps more frequently, in the beginning of 
November. It is, however, a difficult thing to give the exact date of this 
bird’s appearance ; for its wandering mode of life in this country baffles 
precise observation, and renders a record of the exact date of its arrival 
