The Return of the Fieldfare. 117 



spring, and have spent the summer here. We see no 

 more the nightingale and the blackcap, the cuckoo 

 and the redstart. 



They have long been silent. They have vanished 

 in the dark, unseen, unheard, and their going has 

 been hardly noticed. 



By the time we are conscious of their absence, the 

 fields and the lanes, the hills and the marshes, have a 

 new set of tenants, who drop silently into the vacant 

 places. The midsummer play indeed is over, but we 

 shall see a new set of actors among the winter scenery. 



They are not a musical set ; but they make up in 

 movement what they lack in melody, and their pre- 

 sence goes far to console us for our lost companions. 



Conspicuous among them all is the smart figure of 

 the fieldfare, handsomest of familiar thrushes. 



On the eve of the long winter he leaves his home, in 

 Norway or Siberia, and comes southward to these 

 islands, to France and Spain, wandering even as far 

 as Africa. In mild seasons, when the summer lingers 

 late into the autumn, the fieldfare does not reach us 

 till October, and his appearance earlier is considered 

 an omen of a harder year than usual. 



When on the orchard-boughs the fruit glows red 

 through dying leaves, when the hedgerow maple dons 

 its dress of gold, we shall see, far up on the grey sky, 

 the even lines of the invaders, and hear their voices 

 floating downward through the sharp October air. 



But we shall not see much of them yet. When the 



