REDWING. 73 



either move further south or perish in great numbers — the 

 species being one of the first to feel the pangs of want — and 

 become conspicuous by their absence. Their sojourn extends 

 until April, and the 27th of that month is the writer's latest 

 date for their departure. 



During the excessively severe weather in December, 1878, 

 thousands of these birds succumbed or were so pinched by 

 hunger that they actually entered the busy thoroughfares of 

 Leeds in search of food. At Flamborough Mr. M. Bailey 

 noticed them daily resorting to the shore at low- water to search 

 for food amongst the seaweed and refuse fish, and when the 

 tide rose they sought shelter at the base of the cliffs and scores . 

 perished. 



The Redwing is reported to have nested in the county on 

 several occasions, and although it is to be regretted that the 

 evidence is not perhaps conclusive, it is yet of such a nature as 

 to be worthy of recapitulation. 



Mr. Hogg, in his Catalogue of Birds of North-East Cleve- 

 land and South-East Durham (Zool., 1845, iii- 1086) says, 

 ' Mr. J. W. Ord has informed me that a Redwing's nest, with 

 four eggs, was found at Kildale, 1840. John Bell, Esq., M.P., 

 has two of those eggs ; and the other two are at Kildale Hall, 

 in the possession of E. H. Turton, Esq.' 



Under the heading of ' Nesting of the Redwing in North 

 Yorkshire,' Major W. Feilden communicated the following to 

 the Zoologist for 1873 (pp. 3511-12) ; ' The following note to 

 an article on Natural History by the Rev. J. C. Atkinson 

 appears in the People's Magazine for December 1872, p. 379 : 

 — ' I obtained four eggs about ten years ago from a nest in 

 Commondale (North Yorkshire) about which, from the circum- 

 stances connected with bird, nest and eggs, there could be no 

 reasonable ground of doubt as to their origin. Only I did not 

 see the bird myself I received the eggs and the account from 

 a person whose father had been a gamekeeper, and whose own 



