114 WHITE 



Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and field- 

 fares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to 

 retire to some districts more suitable to the purpose of breed- 

 ing. That the former pair before they retire, and that the 

 hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a sports- 

 man, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied 

 but that now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, or young 

 birds, discovered in some part or other of this island ; but 

 then they are all 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 I the 

 more admire 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 or redwings disappear 

 sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on 

 earlier or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful 

 winter 1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow 

 on through April and May, and that these kind of birds 

 (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but 

 were seen lingering about till the beginning of June. 



The best authority that we can have for the nidification of 

 the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony 

 of faunists that have written professedly the natural history 

 of particular countries. Now as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in 

 his " Fauna Suecica," says of it, that " maximis in arboribus 

 nidificat /" and of the redwing he says, in the same place, 

 that " nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex 

 cceruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis." Hence we may be 

 assured that fieldfares and redwings build in Sweden. Sco- 

 poli says, in his " Annus Primus," of the woodcock, that 

 " nupta ad nos venit circa aquinoctium vernale ; " meaning in 

 the Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds 

 " nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3-5." It does not 



