FIELDFARE. 83 



weakly flutter off to the nearest cover, where 

 they conceal, and will scarcely again betake 

 themselves to flight. When the time of their 

 remigration returns, which is sometimes not till 

 May has far advanced, they have for some weeks 

 been collected in bands larger than usual, as if 

 the various flocks had been called in from the 

 district around. They now regularly frequent 

 some favourite feeding ground, and may be seen 

 scattered over the plain or passing overhead now 

 with renewed vigour and a noisy flight, as if pre- 

 paring for the more lengthened journey which they 

 are about to perform. Their roosting places af 

 night are either on trees, particularly the pines an? 

 evergreens, or on the ground. We have undoubted 

 authority that they occasionally resort to the 

 first for shelter,* and we have often, ourselves, 

 intruded on the sleeping grounds in the evening. 

 One situation is a whin cover where there is 

 abundance of tall grass ; another was a young 

 plantation of two or three years growth, among 

 long heath : in both places the flock had alighted, 

 and were disturbed so late at night as only to be 

 known by their alarm-cry, uttered as they rose. 

 Their roost, in these instances, was among the 

 long grass and heath. Mr White's observations 

 long since corroborated this fact, for he tells us, 

 " that larkers, in dragging their nets by night t 

 frequently catch them in the wheat stubbles.f 



* Selby, I. p. 161 ; Thomp. in Mag. of Zool. & Bot 

 II. p. 433. 

 t White, Sir W. J. edit. p. 97. 



