260 HAWS AND HEPS 



to feed on the produce of the hedges, and we see 

 them all day long passing over our heads in large 

 flights on some distant progress, in the same man- 

 ner as our larks, at the commencement of a snowy 

 season, repair to the turnip fields of Somerset and 

 Wiltshire. They remain absent during the conti- 

 nuance of those causes which incited their migration ; 

 but, as the frost breaks up, and even before the 

 thaw has actually commenced, we see a large portion 

 of these passengers returning to their worm and 

 insect food in the meadows, attended probably by 

 many that did not take flight with them though a 

 great number remain in the upland pastures, feed- 

 ing promiscuously as they can. In my younger 

 days, a keen, unwearied sportsman, it was always 

 observable, that in hard weather these birds in- 

 creased prodigiously in number in the counties far 

 distant from the meadow lands, though we knew 

 not the reason ; and we usually against this time 

 provided tempting bushes of haws, preserved in a 

 barn, to place in frequented hedges, near our secret 

 standings. When the fieldfare first arrives, its 

 flesh is dark, thin, and scurfy; but, having fed a 

 little time in the hedges, its rump and side veins 

 are covered with fat. This is, in part, attributable 

 to suppression of perspiration by the cold, and 

 partly to a nutritive farinaceous food ; its flesh at 

 the time becoming bluish and clean. The upland 

 birds are in this state, from perhaps the end of 

 November till the end of January, according as the 

 hedge fruit has held out ; and at this period they 



