160 NATURAL HISTORY 



appears that it is not food alone which determines some 

 species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. 

 Fieldfares and 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 kinds of birds (what few remained of 

 them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering 

 about till the beginning of Juno. 



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 arboribus nidificat :" and of the redwing he says, in the 

 same place, that ft nidificat in mediis arlmsculis, sive 

 sepibus : ova sex cueruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis." 

 Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings 

 breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his " Annus Primus/' of 

 the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium 

 vernale :" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And 

 afterwards he adds, " nidificat inpaludibus alpinis : ova ponit 

 3 5." It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks 

 breed at all in Austria : but he says, " Avis licec septentrio- 

 nalium provinciarum cestivo tempore incola est; ubi plerumque 

 nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme, australiores provincias 

 petit : Itinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque 



in Selkirkshire (see Fairholme, "Mag. Nat. Hist." 1837, pp. 339 and 

 439). The late Mr. Blyth published an account of its having nested 

 at Merton, in Surrey ("Mag. Kat. Hist." vol. iii. p. 467). but unfortu- 

 nately he did not see the birds himself. Another supposed instance 

 of the fieldfare breeding in the south of England was reported by Dr. 

 Bree in " The Field" of June 12th and 19th, 1869. Mr. Blyth stated 

 (" Mag. Xat. Hist." vol. vii. p. 242), that both the redwing and fieldfare 

 had been repeatedly seen throughout the summer in a wood called the 

 Wood of Logic, upon the estate of Sir John Forbes, at Fin try, in 

 Aberdeenshire. On the 29th July, 1864, a fieldfare was shot in a 

 garden near Kirby Muxloe, in Leicestershire, and forwarded to the 

 editor of" The Field" for examination (see " Zoologist," 1864, p. 9248). 

 It had been observed about the garden all the summer. ED. 



