WOODCOCKS FIELDFARES. 159 



they can within a certain district, having no 

 inducement to go in quest of fresh- turned earth." 

 Now, if you mean that the business of congrega- 

 ting is quite at an end from the conclusion of 

 wheat- so wing to the season of barley and oats, it 

 is not the case with us; for larks and chaffinches, 

 and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as 

 much in the very dead of winter as when the 

 husbandman is busy with his ploughs and harrows. 

 Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks 

 and fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to 

 cross the seas, and to retire to some districts 

 more suitable to the purpose of breeding. That 

 the former pair before they retire, and that the 

 hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was 

 a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot 

 indeed be denied but that now and then we hear 

 of a woodcock's nest, or young birds, discovered 

 in some part or other of this island; but then 

 they are always mentioned as rarities, and some- 

 what out of the common course of things ; but 

 as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or 

 naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, pre- 

 tended to have found the nest or young of those 

 species in any part of these kingdoms. And I 

 the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, 

 since, to all appearance, the same food in summer 

 as well as in winter might support them here 

 which maintains their congeners, the blackbirds 

 and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer 

 through. From hence it appears that it is not 

 food alone which determines some species of birds 

 with regard to their stay or departure. Field- 

 fares and redwings disappear sooner or later, 

 according as the warm weather comes on earlier 

 or later ; for I well remember, after that dreadful 

 winter, 1739-40, that cold north-east winds con- 



