106 NIDIFICATIOX. 



birds, discovered in some part or other of this island ; * but 

 then they are always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out 

 of the common course of things ; but as to redwings and field- 

 fares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I could 

 hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those 

 species in any part of these kingdoms, f 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. 

 Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later, according as 

 the warm weather comes on earlier or later ; for I well remem- 

 ber, after that dreadful winter, 1739-40, that cold northeast 

 winds continued to blow on through April and May, and that 

 these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart 

 as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of June. 

 The best authority that we can have for the nidification of 

 the birds above mentioned, in any district, is the testimony of 

 faunists that have written professedly the natural history of 

 particular countries. Now, as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in 

 nis Fauna Suecica, says of it, that " maximis in arboribus nidi- 

 ficat ;" and of the redwing, he says in the same place, that 

 " nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus ; ova sex cceruleo- 

 viridia maculis nigris variis" Hence we may be assured that 

 fieldfares and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his 

 Annus Primus, of the woodcock, that, " nupta ad nos venit circa 

 Gcquinoctium vernalc" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. 

 And afterwards, he adds, " nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova 

 ponit 3 5." It does not appear from Kramer that wood- 

 cocks breed at all in Austria ; but he says, " Avis hcec septen- 

 trionalium provinciarum cestivo tempore incola est ; ubi plerumquc 

 nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme australiorcs provincias petit ; 



* A woodcock's nest, with four eggs in it, was found in Chicksand 

 woods, near Sheffield, in Bedfordshire, on the 15th April, 1826. The 

 eggs were about the size of a bantam hen's, of a bluish white ground, 

 with irregular brown spots. En. 



f Mr Knapp says, " I have before me the egg of a bird, which I 

 believe to be that of a fieldfare, taken from a nest, somewhat like that 

 formed by the song-thrush in 1824." 



Mr Bullock found the nest of a redwing at the island of Harris, one of 

 the Hebrides. Mr Jennings says, he has been informed by a friend, on 

 whose accuracy he can rely, that the redwing occasionally sings in this 

 country before its departure in the spring, En. 



