230 BRITISH BIRDS. 



almost an impossibility. Like the other members of this group of birds, 

 the Fieldfare migrates for the most part at night, and usually at a 

 considerable height; but Dixon noticed its arrival during the day on 

 the east coast of England. He writes : " On the low-lying stretch of 

 shore from Skegness to Boston I well remember to have once seen this 

 bird arrive in countless numbers. The season was late autumn, the 28th 

 of October ; and the wind was light from the north-west. Throughout the 

 whole day the birds were passing over in flocks, in company with Sky-Larks, 

 Golden Plovers, and a few Redwings ; and during the ensuing night, whilst 

 we were out on the mud-flats wild-fowl shooting, their peculiar harsh and 

 startling cries were heard as the great tide of migration continued, unim- 

 peded by darkness, across the gloomy sky above." 



When the first heavy fall of snow is lying on the ground, a walk 

 abroad will probably cause you to make the acquaintance of the Fieldfare. 

 There is something about the first heavy fall of snow peculiarly attractive 

 and interesting to the naturalist in fact to all who take a delight in 

 rural scenes. The whole landscape then bears a strange novel look ; it is 

 something fresh ; and, what is more, bird-life in the snow is an interesting 

 study. If you stroll out into the woods on a wintery morning, before the 

 first freshness of the snow-storm has passed away, a dreamy quietness 

 seems to be everywhere; animals that betrayed their presence amongst 

 the autumn leaves when the ground was bare, now steal silently away, and 

 every thing seems changed by the sudden transformation of a night. The 

 broad-leafed laurels and the dense yews and hollies bend under their heavy 

 pall of dazzling whiteness. Here and there on the trunks of the forest- 

 trees the snow has lodged in the rifts of the bark, and each branch and 

 twig of the hedgerows is clothed in a fair frost-work of silver filagree, 

 whilst overhead the network of branches comes indistinctly out against 

 the leaden sky above. Animals are now betrayed by their tracks upon the 

 snow. Here a hare has crossed, and, doubling, has passed over the 

 turnips, and found her ' ' seat " in some warm hedgerow. There a weasel 

 has come from the stone-heap, and, in irregular march, has entered the 

 shrubbery. The Blackbird has hopped out onto the snowy lawn, in vain 

 search for a scanty sustenance; and on an old stump a Robin has 

 perched, to warble his morning song. The " spoor " of each is now made 

 plain the tell-tale snow reveals them all. But if you want to see the 

 Fieldfares you must not look for them on the ground, but in the hawthorn 

 trees. Long before you approach them they probably take wing in a 

 straggling train, scattering the snow in showers from the twigs, and their 

 harsh notes of tsak, tsik, tsak ring clearly out on the bracing frosty air. 

 From tree to tree they fly before you, always keeping out of gunshot, or, 

 if thoroughly alarmed, mounting into the air, and, in a widely scattered 

 flock, taking themselves off to a distance, their dark forms appearing large 



