264 HEPS AND HAWS 



birds ; but as soon as snow falls, or hard weather 

 comes on, they leave these marshy lands, because 

 their insect food is covered or become scarce, visit 

 the uplands, to feed on the produce of the hedges, 

 and we see them all day long passing over our heads 

 in large flights on some distant progress, in the same 

 manner as our larks, at the commencement of a 

 snowy season, repair to the turnip fields of Somerset 

 and Wiltshire. They remain absent during the 

 continuance of those causes which incited their 

 migration j but, as the frost breaks up, and even 

 before the thaw has actually commenced, we see a 

 large portion of these passengers returning to their 

 worm and insect food in the meadows, attended 

 probably by many that did not take flight with 

 them though a great number remain in the upland 

 pastures, feeding promiscuously as they can. In 

 my younger days, a keen, unwearied sportsman, it 

 was always observable, that in hard weather these 

 birds increased prodigiously in number in the coun- 

 ties far distant from the meadow lands, though we 

 knew not the reason ; and we usually against this 

 time provided tempting bushes of haws, preserved 

 in a barn, to place in frequented hedges, near our 

 secret standings. When the fieldfare first arrives, 

 its flesh is dark, thin, and scurfy ; but, having fed a 

 little time in the hedges, its rump and side veins 

 are covered with fat. This is, in part, attributable 

 to suppression of perspiration by the cold? and 



