THE THRUSH GENUS 355 



During a protracted spell of cold hundreds, and sometimes thou- 

 sands, perish. According to most observers the redwing is the first 

 to succumb. This has been said to be due to its repugnance to a 

 berry diet, but I have seen it during a spell of snow devouring haws 

 with every sign of finding them much to its taste. The bushes were 

 full of these birds, their soft liquid twip ! twip ! coming from all sides, 

 the birds being hidden, except when now and again little flocks rose 

 with a rush, their red flanks flashing as they flew away in scattered 

 flight to descend again with graceful halting sweeps, as if about to 

 alight in mid-air, on an unseen perch, but deciding not, so up again 

 and down, till their feet clasped solid wood. 1 



It has further been suggested that a fruit diet does not agree with 

 them, instances having occurred of birds found dead with their 

 gullets full of berries. 2 But death may have in these been 

 due to other causes. Moreover the question of whether or not this 

 species thrives on berries becomes irrelevant when, in the case of late 

 frosts, few or none remain to be eaten. Under such circumstances red- 

 wings behave much as do the fieldfares, and are possibly more enterpris- 

 ing. In the winter of 1878, when thousands perished, they were seen 

 in the busy streets of Leeds and other towns searching for their food with 

 the sparrows. 3 Like the fieldfares they resort in numbers to the coast, 

 but unlike them do not, judging from the lack of evidence, have recourse 

 to the Swedish-turnip fields. The fieldfare appears to be the only one 

 of our Thrushes who is able to bring himself, when in reduced circum- 

 stances, down to such a diet, and it is in no pleasant mood that he 

 faces his meal. It is at once a banquet and a battle, a dozen pairs 

 at a time rising to fight above the heads of the flock, third parties 



For the mistle-thrush resorting to the coast see G. Sim's, Fauna of Dee (Scotland). I can find 

 no direct evidence of the blackbird doing so, but that it knows its way there is clear from 

 the fact that, in Ayrshire, in late summer, numbers have been found on the shore, sheltering 

 from the heat under blocks of stone (Gray, W. of Scotland). That the remaining species seek 

 the shore in cold weather is common knowledge. 



1 The redwing has been observed to feed on the berries of the hawthorn, blackberry, 

 juniper, ivy, holly, burberry, mountain-ash, and rarely the sloe (N. Wood, British Song-Birds, 

 1836, p. 26). 



1 H. E. Forrest, Fauna of North Wales. 3 T. H. Nelson, Birds of Yorkshire. 



