The ^Delicate Redwings 



AT the head of our British thrushes stands the missel- 

 thrush, largest and boldest of all : the winter singer, 

 whose loud, wild, ringing notes are heard even above 

 the storm, hence his proud name, storm-cock. Next 

 in size, coming between the missel-thrush and the 

 song-thrush, is the fieidfare, like his cousin the red- 

 wing a winter visitor from Scandinavia. The redwing 

 is the most delicate of the thrushes ; while he takes to 

 the haws of the hedges when hard pressed for food, he 

 is more of an insect-eater than the fieldfare, and so in 

 frost and snow feels sooner the pinch of hunger. 

 He is known at once from other thrushes by his 

 reddish-brown wings, and his reddish-orange sides, 

 which show up when he is in flight, and by the band of 

 yellowish white which runs back from the bill over the 

 eye. He comes to us to escape the cold winter of his 

 native land and we may suppose that often the 

 redwings regret they have not flown farther south, 

 for in a cold winter thousands upon thousands die of 

 starvation. Often we have picked up their dead forms, 

 mere bundles of feathers and bones, from the bottom 

 of hedges, from holes, and under fences, remembering 

 with pity that they came to us for hospitality. The 

 other members of the thrush tribe are the song-thrush 

 and the blackbird, and the ring-ousel, a summer 



