138 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



part or other of this island : but then they are always mentioned 

 as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things :* 

 but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has 

 ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the nest or 

 young of those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I 

 the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all 

 appearance, the same food in summer as well as in winter might 

 support them here which maintains their congeners, the black- 

 birds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. 

 From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines 

 some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. 

 Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later according as 

 the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well remem- 

 ber, after that dreadful winter 1739-40, that cold north-east 

 winds continued to blow on through April and May, and that 

 these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart 

 as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of 

 June. 



The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the 

 birds above mentioned in any district is the testimony of faunists 

 that have written professedly the natural history of particular 

 countries. Now, as to the fieldfare, Linna?us, in his Fauna 

 Suecica, says of it that " maximis in arboribus nidificat :" and of 

 the redwing he says, in the same place, that " nidificat in mediis 

 arbusculiSy sive sepibus : ova sex cceruleo-viridia maculis nigris 

 variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings 

 breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of the 

 woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium vernale " 

 meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he 

 adds " nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 5." It does 

 not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria : 

 but he says " Avis hcec septentrionalium provinciarum astivo tern- 

 pore incola est ; ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme 

 australiores provincias petit : hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octo- 

 bris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. Tune rursus circa plenilu- 



* Admitting without hesitation that by far the great majority of woodcocks migrate, I am still 

 of opinion that many more breed in this country, even in the southern districts, than is com- 

 monly supposed. So hidling a bird as the woodcock may readily escape detection in the summer 

 mouths. 1 have at different times seen a considerable number of young ones ; and last year there 

 was a brood close to my residence, within seven miles of London. This year, also, I obtained 

 one in Surrey so early as on the twentieth of April, nearly half grown, notwithstanding the ex- 

 treme backwardness of the season, and although the old birds, together with snipes of both the 

 common species, were still not rare in the London markets. En. 



