THE FIELDFARE. 47 



of fieldfares, wliicli arc in company together. 

 Clare thus notices these birds: — 



" The hedger's toils oft scare the doves that browze 

 The chocolate berries on the ivy boughs ; 

 Or flocking fieldfares, speckled like the thnish, 

 Picking the berry from the hawthorn bush, 

 That come and go on winter's chilling wing, 

 And seem to have no sympathy with spring." 



In sonic years, when these "birds liave arrived 

 here by the end of September, the snow having 

 lain long on the ground, they have cleared off all 

 the ivy-berries in the neighbourhood, eating them 

 miripened, and before they were as large as a 

 pea. In milder seasons, the fieldfares spread 

 themselves in flocks over the fallow-lands and 

 pastures, hunting for the slugs and worms, which 

 they seem to prefer to the berries, to which they 

 resort when these animals cannot be procured. 

 These thrushes remain with us usually till about 

 the coming back of the swallow; but they have 

 been seen and heard sometimes as late as the 

 middle of ^lay. The nest has been found, 

 though very rarely, both in England and Scot- 

 land. Their summer quarters are the countries 

 at the north of Europe ; and they stay through- 

 out the year in Poland, Prussia, and Austria. 



