96 THE nillDS OF NORTIIAM PTOXSIIIUE 



publications, and as many of its great abundance 

 during the same season of 1878-79. I think there 

 can be no doubt tliat many of this and other species 

 were destroyed by the continuous frosts of the last- 

 named winter. In an average season great numbers 

 of Fieldfares visit us, though they are never, I think, 

 so abundant in this county as the Redwing, but they 

 are not so soon driven away by severe weather, and 

 more or less usually remain with us throughout the 

 winter, a few often lingering in their favoiuite haunts 

 till late in May. 



Mr. G. Hunt, above quoted, had a specimen of this 

 bird stuffed, which he shot near Wadenhoe in the 

 month of July many years ago, but though several 

 such occurrences are on record, they are decidedly 

 exceptional, and although instances of the nesting 

 of this species in England have been published 

 circumstantially, I observe that the editor of the 

 fourth edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds ' (than 

 whom there is no higher authority on the subject) 

 states, op. cit. vol. i. p. 273, that not one of these 

 supposed instances seems to be free from reasonable 

 doubt. Our old friend Morton says of the Field- 

 fare : — " According to Mr. Willughby, they all fly 

 out of the country in the spring, not so much as 

 one of them remaining, which perhaps may be true 

 as to most other parts of England ; but yet in this 

 county I have seen here and there one in all the 

 summer months." The true summer-home of the 

 Fieldfare is the north of Europe, where it seems that 

 these birds breed in society. For a description of the 

 nest and eggs I refer my readers to the many English 

 writers who have seen and handled them in situ, 

 especially Mr. Hewitson, as quoted in Yarrell's 'British 

 Birds,' loc. sujJi'co cit. This species is a winter visitor 



