134 Merulidte. 



introduction is the hope of inducing those who have thought- 

 lessly persecuted those poor birds, when they are driven by 

 inexorable -winter to seek shelter and food in our more genial 

 climate, to stay their hand from such ruthless slaughter, and 

 reflect that while it is thought here almost an act of sacrilege to 

 destroy the nightingale and robin, the one so endeared to us by 

 its song, the other by its confidence in man, the Swedish night- 

 ingale partakes of both these virtues, and, moreover, is quite 

 harmless and innocent, seeking nothing from man's stores for its 

 support, but frequenting the meadows during the open weather, 

 where it feeds on worms, snails, and larvse, and, when frost sets 

 in, repairing (not to the rickyard and cornstack, but only) to the 

 hedges, where the berries of the ivy, the hawthorn, and the holly 

 supply its wants ; and, if unusually severe weather occurs, migrat- 

 ing (as is reported by naturalists) still further southwards, even 

 to the shores of the Mediterranean. Montagu reports that 

 vast numbers of these birds resorted to this and the adjacent 

 counties in the hard winter of 1799, when, exhausted by long 

 journeys, they were unable to prolong their travels, and deprived 

 of food by a sudden fall of snow, they perished by thousands 

 from starvation: Gilbert White speaks of their delaying their 

 departure northwards till June, after the dreadful winter of 1739- 

 40, and the cold north-east winds which continued to blow 

 through April and May. Colonel Hawker, in his admirable 

 ' Instructions to Young Sportsmen/ printed in 1838, and there- 

 fore now out of date, when everything relating to shooting has 

 been changed, but yet for all that still a book of practical in- 

 formation and sound advice, says,* that when Redwings appear 

 on the East Coast they as commonly announce the approach of 

 the Woodcock, as does the arrival of the W T ryneck that of the 

 Cuckoo in the south. It is the smallest of the Scandinavian 

 Thrushes, and it does not breed in colonies like the Fieldfare, 

 nor is it so shy of the presence of man as that most wary bird. 

 Mr. Cecil Smith saysf it is known in Somersetshire as the ' Wind 

 Thrush/ and declares it is hardier than the Fieldfare, because, 

 Page 248. t ' Birds of Somerset/ p. G4. 



