82 FIELDFARE. 



they seem to seek and frequent the more moist 

 upland pastures, and as the storm sets in with 

 severity, gradually seek the lower grounds where 

 there is more shelter and moisture. If a storm 

 continues for some length, they are reduced to 

 sad extremity : many of them, in some years, 

 perish with exhaustion and for want, and their 

 incapability to exist during a continuance of frost 

 and snow plainly shews the necessity and wisdom 

 of their migration, for they never seem to attain 

 the domestic habits of the common thrush or 

 blackbird, which, when driven by distress, will 

 seek relief with the poultry and the refuse of the 

 farm-yard. In some severe winters we have 

 repeatedly taken this commonly wild bird with 

 the hand in a state of complete exhaustion.* 

 ^Vhen the ground has been for some time frozen 

 4>, we perceive a sure indication of the distress 

 of the Fieldfare, by small parties of from a pair 

 to five or six, frequenting the open springs 

 and shallow ditches, remaining by the river's 

 side, and endeavouring to find about the moist 

 edges a precarious subsistence. This forenoon, 

 (29th January, 1838,) after fourteen days of 

 intense frost, we see them sitting associated with 

 the snipe, and when alarmed, instead of the alert 

 rising flight, and loud chatter of prosperity, they 



* Colonel Montague mentions the effects on this bird and 

 the redwing during the snow-storm of 1798 : " They 

 hecame too weak to shift their quarters to a more southern 

 climate, and thousands were picked up starved to death. " 

 Orn. Diet. 



