258 FIELDFARES 



green Norwegian river. I could not but speculate upon 

 the difference there must be in the digestive powers of 

 nestlings reared in a humdrum British summer, wherein 

 even the longest day yields place to a period of darkness, 

 when supplies must be knocked off, compared with that 

 of birds reared in these high latitudes, where the summer 

 night is scarcely a transient dimness. I could not make 

 out that the parent birds ever went to sleep. At what- 

 ever period of the day or night I happened to pass through 

 that gray alder copse, there they were, stuffing their 

 insatiable progeny with good things. The fieldfare very 

 seldom condescends to rear its young in Britain, but in 

 Norway its nesting colonies are very notable features in 

 the forests. Unlike other thrushes, they do not abandon 

 their gregarious habits in the breeding season. Now they 

 are with us again, as is their wont in winter, and very 

 distinguished they appear, flashing along in their lofty, 

 curveting flight. They have a far more gamey appear- 

 ance on the wing than any other of the British thrushes ; 

 indeed, they are reputed to be excellent on the table. But, 

 Lord ! we have plenty of variety in diet without being 

 tempted to persecute these fine birds for their flesh. 

 Luckily, they take good care of themselves ; none of their 

 relatives are so gun-shy as they. Perhaps it is the vast 

 solitudes wherein they are reared that make them so wary 

 on arriving upon a man-infested island like this. Certain 

 it is, there is no song-bird so difficult of approach. 

 Bicycling lately one bright autumn day I saw a flock of 

 many hundreds of fieldfares in some high hedges and 

 roadside trees, but not one of them would allow me to get 

 within sixty yards of him. 



