CLIX. 

 TURDUS ILIACUS. 



Redwing. 



In our long rambles through the boundless forest scene- 

 ry of Norway, or during our visits to some of its thousand 

 isles, whether by day or by night, the loud, wild and most 

 delicious song of the Redwing seldom failed to cheer us. 



Unlike its neighbour the Fieldfare, it was solitary and 

 shy, and on our approach to the tree on the top of which 

 it was perched, would drop down and hide itself in the 

 thick of the brushwood. 



Throughout that part of the country which we visited it 

 is known by the name of Nightingale, and well it deserves 

 to be so — to a sweeter songster I have never listened. 



Like the Nightingale of more southern skies, its clear 

 sweet song would occasionally delight us during the hours 

 of night, if the two or three delightful hours of twilight 

 which succeed the long day of a Norwegian summer can 

 be called night. The birds, like the other inhabitants of 

 the country, seem loath to lose in sleep a portion of this 

 short-lived season. 



Anxious to extend our researches onwards, in the hope 

 that as we proceeded north we should prove more success- 

 ful, we had lingered but little to search for the nest and 

 eggs of the Redwing, and our enquiries with regard to 

 them had been unavailing. 



One afternoon, as we approached the sea-coast, and at 

 the same time the northern limit of a beaten road, we dis- 

 covered a nest of the Redwing ; but to our great disap- 

 pointment it had young ones. 



Having almost reached the boundary of our woodland 

 rambles for the present, we spent the whole of the follow- 

 ing day exploring the beautiful woods by which we were 

 on all sides surrounded. We found a second nest of the 



