2948 Birds. 



birds. I was much struck by the parental love and undaunted bold- 

 ness of the old birds, who would fly round and round, and dart at me 

 within a lew inches of my hat, screaming and chattering as loudly as 

 they could, so very different from the wild, unapproachable bird which 

 so often baffles the schoolboy in the winter. Fieldfares are certainly 

 the most numerous birds in Norway, and we may hear them chatter- 

 ing and clamouring from every cluster of low trees and bushes in the 

 vicinity of a torrent. I have noticed that they usually build in the 

 neighbourhood of a stream, and always in society. Mr. Hewitson 

 says that the number of nests in one colony sometimes amounts to 

 upwards of two hundred. I have never seen above eight or nine nests 

 together. 



Egg of the Redwing (Turdus iliacus). Nothing that relates to 

 Natural History has surprised me more than the doubts concerning 

 the egg of this bird. In looking over the past volumes of the ' Zoolo- 

 gist,' just before starting for Norway, I happened to hit upon a com- 

 munication (Zool. 2141) referring to the existing doubts as to the 

 colour of this egg, in which your correspondent asks for information, 

 but (as far as I can find) has never met with a reply in the pages of 

 the ' Zoologist.' In my presumption I immediately resolved to clear 

 up the difficulty, by procuring some undoubted specimens of this egg 

 in Norway, should I be too late to find any myself, never for an in- 

 stant hesitating as to the possibility of doing so, though I own I 

 should have been staggered by the failure of Mr. Hewitson. I grieve 

 to say that, though I made every possible attempt, I have returned 

 not a whit the wiser as regards the egg of the redwing. Though I 

 constantly saw and listened to the bird, and though I searched in 

 places which I considered most likely with great perse verence, I never 

 found a nest with eggs or young. Nor were my efforts confined 

 to personal investigation : at both the Museums of Trondhjem and 

 Christiania I made special application to the Professors of Natural 

 History regarding it, particularly at the latter, where the Professor is 

 a very scientific as well as most obliging man. In neither museum 

 was the egg of the redwing to be found, though in both there was a 

 collection of eggs, and the Professor at Trondhjem, as well as the Pro- 

 fessor and his assistant at Christiania, owned they were not acquainted 

 with its colour. I trust some more fortnnate naturalist than myself 

 will be able to discover the egg, and communicate the result of his 

 discovery in the ' Zoologist,' or I shall begin to look upon the red- 

 wings as mysterious birds, and somewhat versed in magic, if they can 



