132 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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 all always mentioned as rarities, 

 and somewhat out of the common course of things : but as 

 to redwings and fieldfares, 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. 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 or 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 continued to blow on through April and 

 May, and that these kind 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 testi- 

 mony of faunists that have written professedly the natural 

 history of particular countries. Now as to the fieldfare, 

 Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica, says of it, that ^'•maximis 

 in arhoribus nidificat ; " 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 

 build in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of 



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