FIELDFAKE. 173 



districts, if the winter be a hard one, and at the commencement 

 of some severe snow-storm, when 'across the wold the wind 

 blows cold,' large nights may be seen overhead wending their 

 way to some place of refuge, and again, as soon as there are 

 the earliest symptoms of a change, nay, even before we can 

 perceive any, they begin to return to their former quarters, 

 and therewith to their previous shyness, which dire necessity 

 alone had for the time overcome. If the snow continues long 

 upon the ground, so that their needful supply is exhausted 

 before their ordinary food can be again obtained, thousands 

 are starved to death through the joint wasting of hunger 

 and cold. Sir William Jardine exactly describes their manner 

 when suffering from severity; then when alarmed, he says, 

 instead of the alert rising flight, and the loud chatter of 

 prosperity, they weakly nutter off to the nearest cover, and 

 will scarcely again betake themselves to flight. Some are 

 said to remain in this country to breed. Mr. Allis, in his 

 'Catalogue of the Birds of Yorkshire,' already referred to, 

 mentions one such instance as having occurred at Lepton, 

 near Huddersneld, in the West-Riding. Other instances are 

 also said to have been known in this country. A nest has 

 been found, it is related, in Kent, and some obtained in 

 Scotland; two are also recorded by the editor of 'Pennant's 

 British Zoology.' In the Orkney Islands a few occasionally 

 stay during the whole year, but have never been known to 

 breed. 



These birds go in large flocks, frequently of several hundreds, 

 and commonly in parties of not less than thirty or forty 

 together; occasionally, however, two or three seem to withdraw 

 from the main body, and frequent some quiet and retired 

 hedgerow in company with the Blackbird and the Thrush. 

 Their thought may be to remain to breed, but for the most 

 part, from some cause or other, it is doomed to be an abortive 

 one. They are sometimes rather quarrelsome when engaged 

 in feeding on a common crop. They roost both in trees and 

 on the ground, and in bushes near the latter, but for the 

 most part in the former, in some parts of the country at all 

 events. They often associate with the Eedwing, as also with 

 the Missel Thrush and the Throstle. They are said to be 

 not at all shy in the breeding-season in their native countries, 

 but in fact all birds' natures are then temporarily altered 

 more or less in this respect. They are capable of being kept 

 in confinement. 



