THE THRUSH. 29 



West Norfolk, he says : "Year after year we have 

 noticed that, as summer draws to a close, the 

 birds of this species (at that season very abun- 

 dant) associate more or less in small companies. 

 As autumn advances, their numbers often undergo 

 a very visible increase until about the middle of 

 October, when a decided diminution begins to take 

 place. Sometimes large, but more generally small, 

 flocks are seen passing at a considerable height 

 overhead, and the frequenters of the brakes and 

 turnip fields grow scarcer. By the end of November 

 hardly an example ordinarily appears. It is true 

 that sometimes, even in severe weather, an individual 

 or so may be found here and there, leading a soli- 

 tary life in some sheltered hedge -bottom or thick 

 plantation which may afford conditions of existence 

 more favourable than are elsewhere to be met with ; 

 but this is quite an exceptional occurrence. Towards 

 the end of January or beginning of February their re- 

 turn commences. They reappear at first slowly and 

 singly ; but as spring advances in considerable abun- 

 dance and without interruption, until, in the height 

 of the breeding season, they by far out-number their 

 more stay-at-home cousins, the Blackbirds." 



