126 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



as the two redwings, was crammed tight with the 

 half-digested remains of berries, chiefly haws. 



The above facts seem to indicate a difference in 

 the food of these two species of birds, the redwing 

 inclining more to an insect, or animal diet, than the 

 fieldfare ; and if so, this difference may serve in some 

 measure to account for a remark of White's, that 

 " when birds come to suffer by severe frost, the first 

 that fail and die are the redwing fieldfares."* I have 

 myself occasionally noticed the same circumstance, 

 and many times picked up redwings during hard 

 weather in a dead or starving condition, whilst I 

 never met with a fieldfare in the same state. Insects 

 and shells must be obtained with considerable diffi- 

 culty as the severity of the season increases, whereas 

 of berries there is seldom a deficient supply, f 



SONG-THRUSH.;}; 



THRUSHES, as White and others have observed, 

 live much on snails during the summer, especially in 



* Nat. Hist. ofSelborne, Lett. V. to D. Barrington. 



t Mr. Thompson has also made some remarks on the food of 

 these two species of birds, which appear rather to confirm the 

 above idea. The stomachs of three redwings, opened by him, 

 contained principally insects and shells, mixed however in two 

 individuals with some vegetable food (chiefly bits of grass). The 

 stomachs of three, out of six fieldfares, were found to contain 

 vegetable matter alone (mostly grain) ; one being " filled with oats, 

 though the weather had been mild for some time before, and when 

 it was shot :" the other three contained insects, shells, and worms, 

 in addition to the vegetable matter. See Mag. of Zool. and Bot. 

 vol. ii. pp. 433 and 437. J Turdus musicus, Linn. 



