OF SELBORNE. 159 



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 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 king- 

 doms. And I the more admire at this instance as extra- 

 ordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer 

 as well as in winter might support them here which main- 

 tains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did 

 they choose to stay the summer through. 1 From hence it 



1 Both the redwing and fieldfare are stated on some authority to' 

 have occasionally nested in the British Islands: see Mr. More's 

 article on the " Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the nesting 

 season," published in " The Ibis" for 1865, p. 19. In " Charlesworth's 

 Magazine of Xatural History," the late Mr. Blyth reported that several 

 instances of the redwing's nesting in Surrey were known to him ; and 

 in the same periodical (vol. i. p. 440) he quoted the statement of a dealer 

 that a nest of this bird had been taken at Barnet. Yarrell instances a 

 nest found at Godalming: and one taken in Leicestershire is recorded by 

 Mr. J. H. Ellis in'" The Zoologist" for 1864, p. 9248. In Shropshire 

 Mr. Eyton has observed that some of these birds remain all the summer 

 in his neighbourhood. In May, 1855, the late Dr. Saxby found a nest of 

 the redwing at Maintwrog, North AY ales. It was placed in a tall Portugal 

 laurel; and he repeatedly observed the bird sitting on her eggs, which 

 he afterwards took. The circumstance was recorded by him in " The 

 Zoologist'' "Sor 1861, p. 7427 ; but a more detailed account, copied from 

 his private journal, has since been published by his brother, the Rev. 

 Stephen Saxby, in his recent work on the " Birds of Shetland," p. 384. 



In the Outer Hebrides Mr. Bullock, in a letter to Dr. Fleming, dated 

 23rd Apri], 1819, mentioned the circumstance of the redwing breeding 

 in Harris, where he had observed it in the preceding summer. (Sec 

 Fleming's Hist. Brit. An. p. 65.) In Orkney, Mr. Low says ("Fauna 

 Orcadensis," p. 58) that he observed a pair of these birds in Hoy 

 throughout the greatest part of the summer, and imagined that they built 

 amongst the bushes there, though with the strictest search he could not 

 discover the nest. 



In like manner there are several reported instances of the fieldfare 

 having remained to breed in this country. Mr. St. John in his " Tour 

 in Sutherlandshire," vol. i. p. 206, says that he was shown a nest and 

 eggs from near the Spey ; and the bird is reported to have nested also 



