Fieldfare. 120 



too, is very powerful, and it is the earliest as well as the largest of 

 our British songsters, its notes being often heard above the gale in 

 the month of February, amid the blasts of winter. It is common 

 everywhere. In the south of the county, as in many other parts of 

 England, it is called the ' Storm Cock,' from its habit of singing 

 during the prevalence of a gale of wind and rain. The Rev. G. 

 Marsh used to tell me that in his locality it was called the 

 ' Screech Thrush,' while in Devonshire and Cornwall it is known 

 as the 'Holm Screech,' or 'Holly Screech/ holm being the provin- 

 cial name in those counties for the holly tree, whose berries form 

 its favourite food; and each bird takes possession of his tree, 

 keeping constant to it as long as there is fruit on it, and driving 

 away all other birds with the utmost fury.* In Sweden it is 

 known as Dubbel Trast, or 'Double Thrush;' and in Malta as 

 Malvitzan, or ' Large Thrush ;' but the Welsh call it Pen y Ihvyn, 

 the ' Head ' (or ' Master ') ' of the Coppice.'t In France it is 

 Merle Draine ; in Germany, Mistel Drossel; in Italy it is simply 

 Tordo Maggiore ; in Spain, Charla, ' the Chatterer ;' in Portu- 

 guese, Tordeia and Tordoveia. The specific name, Viscivoru*, 

 from viscum, ' mistletoe,' and voro, * I devour,' is simply a trans- 

 lation of Aristotle's name bestowed on this species, /goCofo;. For 

 the greater part of the year it is a lonely bird, and may often be 

 seen amidst the clumps of trees in the open spaces of a park. 



33. FIELDFARE (Turdus pilaris). 



Very well known and very generally dispersed throughout the 

 country is this regular periodical migrant to our shores, arriving 

 from the north late in the autumn, and leaving us in the spring. 

 We may see them in flocks in our meadows or on the tops of the 

 leafless elms, and many a day's sport and much disappointment 

 too do these wary birds afford to the schoolboy gunner. They 

 retire to breed in Norway and Sweden, where I have found their 

 nests in small colonies of eight or nine. Mr. Hewitson mentions 

 a colony of two hundred nests, but I never saw any such number. 



Montagu's ' Supplement ;' Rodd's ' Birds of Cornwall,' p. xxxvi. 

 f Harting's edition of White's ' Selborne,' p. 210. 



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