300 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



to that cause, for it sometimes happens that birds act 

 in direct opposition to what we should consider the 

 most eligible course. 



For instance, the redwing is one of our most promi- 

 nent winter visitors. Flocks of redwings and fieldfares 

 are commonly seen during the end of the season. They 

 come as winter approaches, they leave as it begins to 

 grow warm. In every sense they are birds of passage ; 

 any ploughboy will tell you so. (By-the-bye, the 

 ploughboys call the fieldfares " velts." Is not " velt " 

 a Northern word for field ?) But one spring it was 

 rapidly verging on summer I was struck day after 

 day by hearing a loud, sweet, but unfamiliar note in 

 a certain field. Fancying that most bird notes were 

 known to me, this new song naturally arrested my 

 attention. In a little while I succeeded in tracing 

 it to an oak tree. I got under the oak tree, and 

 there on a bough was a redwing singing with all his 

 might. It should be remarked that neither redwing 

 nor fieldfare sings during the winter ; they, of course, 

 have their " call " and cry of alarm, but by no stretch 

 of courtesy could it be called a song. But this red- 

 wing was singing sweet and very loud, far louder 

 than the old, familiar notes of the thrush. The note 

 rang out clear and high, and somehow sounded 

 strangely unfamiliar among English meadows and 

 English oaks. 



Then looking farther and watching about the 

 hedges there, I soon fpund that the bird was not 

 alone there were three or four pairs of redwings in 



