32 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



confidence, because, as they move in large flocks, there 

 is no difficulty in tracing the direction in which they 

 are going. They all went west when the severe 

 weather began. On the southern side of London, 

 at least in the districts I am best acquainted with, 

 there was hardly a fieldfare or redwing to be seen for 

 weeks and even months. Towards spring they came 

 back, flying east for Norway. As thrushes and black- 

 birds move singly, and not with concerted action, their 

 motions cannot be determined with such precision, but 

 all the facts are in favour of the belief that they also 

 went west. 



That they were killed by the frost and snow I utterly 

 refuse to credit. Some few, no doubt, were I saw 

 some greatly enfeebled by starvation but not the 

 mass. If so many had been destroyed their bodies 

 must have been seen when there was no foliage to 

 hide them, and no insects to quickly play the scaven- 

 ger as in summer. Some were killed by cats ; a few 

 perhaps by rats, for in sharp winters they go down 

 into the ditches, and I saw a dead redwing, torn and 

 disfigured, at the mouth of a drain during the snow, 

 where it might have been fastened on by a rat. But it is 

 quite improbable that thousands died as was supposed. 



Thrushes and blackbirds are not like rooks. Rooks 

 are so bound by tradition and habit that they very 

 rarely quit the locality where they were reared. Their 

 whole lives are spent in the neighbourhood of the nest, 

 trees, and the woods where they sleep. They may 

 travel miles during the day, but they always come 

 back to roost. These are the birds that suffer the 

 most during long frosts and snows. Unable to break 

 the chain that binds them to one spot, they die rather 

 than desert it. A miserable time, indeed, they had of 



