WILD LIFE IN HARD WEATHER 215 



I have long desired to understand why such 

 apparently hardy birds as fieldfares and red- 

 wings, coming from higher latitudes than ours, 

 suffer even more than our native birds during 

 hard weather. It is a generally accepted belief 

 that migratory birds, or their young, return to 

 the same quarters by the same line of flight, 

 year after year. Supposing that the redwings 

 and fieldfares we now see are the descendants 

 of untold generations which have frequented 

 these fields and woodlands for countless winters 

 why, then, are they not inured, like thrushes 

 and blackbirds, to the hardships they at present 

 encounter ? Disasters, apparently similar to 

 those that have overtaken other birds, have 

 been the lot of redwing and fieldfare ; a similar 

 process of weeding out weaklings by these disas- 

 ters, and thus of causing a gradual adaptability 

 to surroundings, has taken place. Bearing this 

 in mind, I cannot readily account for the dis- 

 proportionate mortality among the birds. Our 

 northern visitors are doubtless affected by having 

 to change their diet after migration. But for 

 centuries they have been affected in the same 

 way, and so should have become accustomed to 

 the conditions imposed on them, in constant 

 succession, by Nature. 



Musing over this problem one of thousands 

 which the naturalist cannot solve I return 



