SONG THRUSH. 71 



and though its numbers were markedly reduced by the arctic 

 winters of 1878-9 and 1879-80, it is now quite as numerous -as 

 before. In the wilder portions of the county it becomes scarcer 

 and while it is almost unknown on the moorlands, Mr. Lucas 

 (Zool. 1879, p. 410) mentions its occurrence in Nidderdale up 

 to at least 1200 feet. The Yorkshire Thrushes are partially 

 migratory : on the approach of winter the great Jiiajority move 

 south, while the few that stay with us during the drear months 

 are either immigrants from more northern localities or are old 

 birds ; these enliven us by their cheery song during the finer 

 winter days and until the main body returns in the earliest days 

 of spring. 



Nidification commences early, for it is not an uncommon 

 event to find young birds some days old early in April, and 

 nests and eggs have been found in the county in February, 

 while during the abnormally mild winter of 1843 a nest and 

 three eggs were found near Campsall in South Yorkshire on 

 Christmas Day (Schroeder's Annals of Yorkshire, 185 1, p. 350). 

 The latest date known to me for eggs is the 27th of July. In 

 the writer's collection of eggs is one marked with large red 

 spots, or rather blotches, obtained by him from a nest at 

 Arthington in 1878, the other eggs of the clutch being similarly 

 but not so boldly marked. The Throstle, as it is locally called, 

 is double-brooded, and sometimes rears both broods in the 

 same nest. A curious nesting site is described in the Naturalist 

 (1876, p. 155), an old tea-kettle hung on a branch in a planta- 

 tion near Huddersfield having been selected. 



This bird being a summer visitant to Scandinavia, migrants 

 from the north, as we might naturally expect, arrive on our 

 shores chiefly in October and November, along with Fieldfares 

 and Redwings. Two were captured on a vessel 14 miles off 

 Whitby on the 7th of October 1833 (Edward Blyth). In the 

 spring these hyperborean Thrushes again visit us on their north- 

 ward passage ; and at Flamborough Lighthouse on the early 

 morning of the 12th of March 1877, the weather being hazy, 



