FLOCKS OF BIRDS. 37 



confidence, because, as they move in large flocks, there 

 is no difficulty in tracing the direction in which they 

 are going. They all went west when the severe 

 weather began. On the southern side of London, 

 at least in the districts I am best acquainted with, 

 there was hardly a fieldfare or redwing to be seen for 

 weeks and even months. Towards spring they came 

 back, flying east for Norway. As thrushes and black- 

 birds move singly, and not with concerted action, their 

 motions cannot be determined with such precision, but 

 all the facts are in favour of the belief that they also 

 went west. 



That they were killed by the frost and snow I utterly 

 refuse to credit. Some few, no doubt, were — I saw 

 some greatly enfeebled by starvation — but not the 

 mass. If so many had been destroyed their bodies 

 must have been seen when there was no foliage to 

 hide them, and no insects to quickly play the sca- 

 venger as in summer. Some were killed by cats ; a 

 few perhaps by rats, for in sharp winters they go 

 down into the ditches, and I saw a dead redwing, torn 

 and disfigured, at the mouth of a drain during the 

 snow, where it might have been fastened on by a rat. 

 But it is quite improbable that thousands died as was 

 supposed. 



Thrushes and blackbirds are not like rooks. Eooks 

 are so bound by tradition and habit that they very 

 rarely quit the locality where they were reared. Their 

 whole lives are spent in the neighbourhood of the nest 

 trees and the woods where they sleep. They may 

 travel miles during the day, but they always come 

 back to roost. These are the birds that suffer the 



