180 HAWS AND HEPS 



plover, are in some places not uncommonly taken and 

 sold conjointly with them in the London market ; and 

 probably the habitual eater of them only can distinguish 

 a sensible difference. 



Prognostications and signs, a great amusement, and 

 the ground-work of belief to our forefathers, have, in 

 general, pretty much declined with us ; the repeated 

 falsity of most of them having destroyed their reputa- 

 tion. We know so little, if any thing, of the actuating 

 causes of seasons and their change, or the combinations 

 effecting results, that no safe conclusion can be formed 

 of any present events influencing the future. Whatever 

 our almanacs may do, few persons of credit will venture 

 now to predict, from what we call natural causes, a hot 

 summer, or a severe winter ; yet that very ancient idea, 

 amongst country people, that " years of store of haws 

 and heps do commonly portend cold winters," still lin- 

 gers with us. However warmly we assent to the fun- 

 damental truth, the merciful consideration of Provi- 

 dence, in providing food for the necessities of the little 

 fowls of the air, which, perhaps, piously gave rise to 

 the observation, almost every year proves, that any con- 

 clusions drawn from these " stores of haws and heps " 

 are perfectly fallacious. The birds that feed chiefly 

 upon the fruit of the white thorn, and the wild rose, 

 are the fieldfare (turdus pilaris), and the redwing (tur- 

 dus iliacus) ; and that they do so, every sportsman has 

 had the most manifest conviction : yet it has been said 

 recently, that these creatures do not eat these fruits ; 

 and said too by an eminent and amiable man, with whom 

 I have frequently had the honor of conversing, and al- 

 ways with profit.* Were he living, his love of science 

 would encourage my observations, though not in unison 

 with his opinion : my breath shall not agitate his ashes, 

 nor will his spirit, I am certain, frown in anger at my 

 lines. It must be premised, that these birds, generally 

 speaking, give the preference to insect food and worms ; 

 and when flights of them have taken their station near 

 i^ _i _ 



* Substance of a paper read before the Royal Society, Nov. 27, 

 1824. See Zoological Magazine, vol i. 



