EATEN BY BIRDS, 181 



the banks of large rivers, margined by lowlands, we 

 shall find, that the bulk of them will remain there, and 

 feed in those places,' and, in the uplands, we shall ob- 

 serve small restless parties only. But in the midland 

 and some other counties, the flocks that are resident 

 have not always these meadows to resort to, and they 

 then feed on the haws as long as they remain. In this 

 county, the extensive lowlands of the river Severn in 

 open weather are visited by prodigious rlocks of these 

 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 ; 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 proba- 

 bly 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 counties 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 lit- 

 tle time in the hedges, its rump and side veins are cov- 

 ered with fat. This is, in part, attributable to suppres- 

 sion of perspiration by the cold, and partly to a nutritive 

 farinaceous food; its flesh at the time becoming bluish 

 and clean. The upland birds are in this state, from 

 perhaps the end of November till the end of January, 

 according as the hedge fruit has held out^ and at this 

 period they are comparatively tawie^ afterward, though 

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