74 FIELDFARES. 



considerable time, and gave yourself good room to examine the 

 natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of 

 the islands, as well as those of the Highlands. The usual 

 bane of such expeditions is hurry, because men seldom allot 

 themselves half the time they should do ; but, fixing on a day 

 for their return, post from place to place, rather as if they were 

 on a journey that required despatch, than as philosophers 

 investigating the works of nature.* You must have made, no 

 doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good fund of materials 

 for a future edition of the British Zoology, and will have no 

 reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a 

 part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined 

 before. 1 



It has always been matter of wonder to me, that fieldfares, 

 which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should 

 never choose to breed in England : but that they should not 

 think even the Highlands cold and northerly, and sequestered 

 enough, is a circumstance still more strange and wonderful.-)* 

 The ringousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole year 

 round ; so that we have reason to conclude that those migrators 

 that visit us for a short space every autumn, do not come from 

 thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention, that 

 those birds were most punctual again in their migration this 

 autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th of September ; 

 but their flocks were larger than common, and their stay 



* The justice of this remark will be appreciated by every person of 

 reflection, when it is considered that the examination of the parish of 

 Selborne was the principal business of the intelligent White for nearly a 

 lifetime, although he paid but little attention to the insects and botany of 

 the parish. We remember an account of the geology of the country 

 betwixt Cork and Dublin having been read before a certain learned society, 

 from observations made by a certain learned and Reverend Doctor, from 

 the top of a mail coach ! ED. 



f In the Nat. Hist. Mag. \. p. 276, the following remarkable 

 circumstance is narrated: " Last week, (19th February, 1832,) as 

 Mr Mitcalf, keeper to Lord Lowther, in Ravenstondale, was ranging the 

 fields with his gun, he observed a hawk hovering near him ; and while 

 preparing to give it a shot, a fieldfare flew in terror against his breast, and 

 then perched upon his shoulder. He fired at the hawk with the first 

 barrel, (while the fieldfare sat still,) but missed ; the hawk, intent upon 

 his prey, disregarded that shot ; with the second barrel he brought the 

 bird down. The fieldfare left his shoulder, and fluttered for a short time 

 around its fallen and dead enemy, uttering a chirp of joy, and then winged 

 away from its friend and unexpected protector. There is something more 

 than instinct in such a circumstance." ED, 



