FEBRUARY 59 



redbreast is sure to appear on the scene. Alighting 

 close before you, he cocks a confident eye as if to say : 

 'Look here; you must turn up something for me. I 

 simply can't get through this winter without nourishing 

 diet, so look sharp ! ' Only the other day I was fishing 

 a salmon cast on the Spey; it was bitter March 

 weather and I had a hard battle with the gale. I had 

 just managed to get out a fairly good line when, presto! 

 a robin was sitting on my rod. Goodness knows where 

 he came from, for it was far from any homestead. The 

 question remains — why should the wren apprehend 

 more from human treachery than the robin ? 



The song-thrush becomes very tolerant of man's 

 presence during the nesting season, hopping about on 

 the lawn quite near him ; but the gregarious thrushes 

 — the redwing {Turdus iliacus) and the fieldfare (T, 

 pilaris) — remain excessively wary and restless during 

 their winter sojourn in these islands. When feeding in 

 the fields and hedges, they always keep vedettes posted 

 on some tree or commanding position, and on the first 

 note of alarm, the whole flock takes wing and is away. 

 Fieldfares are esteemed as a delicacy, I believe, in 

 some parts of England, but I have never known them 

 to be persecuted in Scotland. Considering with what 

 diligence the song-thrush is shot in France, where it 

 ranks as high-class gibier, it is remarkable that it has 

 not learnt the distrust of man habitually shown by the 

 fieldfare. Habitually, that is, during its winter sojourn 

 with us ; but in Norway, where fieldfares nest together 

 in large colonies among the alders and birchwoods, they 

 §ihibit much less anxiety. 



