320 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



London collecting for the Christmas market, see them from 

 afar and beg leave to purchase. But the berries are not 

 designed for Covent Garden. 



In the early winter not a single berry is touched, so far 

 as one can see. Perhaps now and again a blackbird picks 

 one off a probability enhanced by the discovery of holly 

 seedlings in one of the blackbird's favourite haunts. But 

 the cardinal harvest remains apparently intact till a particular 

 day. It is then attacked furiously by the fieldfares, and the 

 whole cleared off in a day or two. It is difficult to determine 

 the reasons of the sudden attacks. No doubt the holly-berry 

 is bitter as compared with the hip, which is therefore 

 preferred before it. But whether the birds are forced by 

 necessity to take the less savoury food, or whether they wait 

 till the berries are matured is another question. All the wild 

 berries are softened and sweetened by frost and much 

 weather. At Christmas the holly-berries are hard and shiny. 

 After a week's good frost they mature, like celery, and the 

 first birds to fall upon them are the congregated fieldfares, 

 which travel further than our native birds in quest of food, 

 and are much more dependent on berries. 



All the thrush tribe are great berry-eaters ; but the thrush 

 itself is much more carnivorous than missel-thrushes, 

 blackbirds and fieldfares. In fields where the May bushes 

 are frequent you may almost catch blackbirds with your 

 hands, so greedy are they for the hips. The time is a 

 perfect one for watching the birds ; you have only to stand 

 still against the trunk or series of trunks of some thorn and 

 watch. If it is very cold the fieldfares will crowd on the 

 bush over your head, now and again dropping to the ground 

 almost at your feet to pick up fallen fruit. Missel-thrushes 

 prefer above all other food the berries of the yew or one of 

 its varieties. Any one who plants a Japanese yew in his 



