223 BRITISH BIRDS. 



"O'liither they repair at nightfall to roost. They prefer districts where the 

 evergreens are dense and plentiful — laurels, yews, and hollies a century 

 old or more, and the intervening space between them taken up by thick 

 underwood and forest trees, and where huge sycamores, elms and beeches, 

 oaks and horsechestnut form a regular labyrinth of arboreal seclusion. 

 They feed in the lands adjoining, pasture and turnip-fields, stubbles and 

 meadows, with here and there a " summer fallow." In a district like this, 

 from October till April, the Redwing is a common bird. In the daytime 

 they frequent the pastures ; and when the dusk is falling they seek the 

 evergreens of the gardens and shrubberies. Regularly every year the birds 

 will come, and, if they are not molested, remain stationary throughout the 

 winter, giving animation by their presence to the landscape, and filling 

 the wihtery air with their cheerful pleasing notes. But the Redwing has 

 other haunts, quite as dear to it as those in our own land. In spring 

 the Redwings seek the northern forests for the purpose of propagating 

 their species. In Scandinavia they frequent the fir- and birch-woods. 

 Here amongst these scattered forests, which lie at the feet of the high 

 stony ranges of the fells, the Redwing finds a summer home. Wild and 

 romantic are its breeding-grounds — plains and valleys, meadow and culti- 

 vated land, and dells covered with the marsh-loving alder and willow and 

 birch trees growing in wildest luxuriance. Vast morasses, rivers, inland 

 lakes whose margins are fringed with a heavy growth of various reeds and 

 sedges, forest lands, meadows and plains are the features of the ever- 

 changing landscape. In such wild and secluded regions as these, the 

 border land between forest and fell, the Redwing breeds, far from those 

 busy haunts of men which the bird delights to frequent so confidingly 

 when the blasts of winter render its northern home untenable. 



The migrations of the Redwing form a prominent feature in its life- 

 history. When the woodlands are painted with the ruddy hues of autumn 

 and the corn is garnered, the first flocks of the Redwing may be looked for. 

 They come to our islands during the latter days of October — although their 

 arrival is very irregular ; for occasionally Redwings come in the opening 

 days of the month, yet in other seasons not a bii'd has arrived until tlie 

 first week in November, the state of the season possibly influencing their 

 movements. Redwings, like Song-Thrushes, perform their migrations 

 under the cover of darkness. On the clear starlight nights of October 

 their peculiar call-notes may be often heard as the birds flit across the sky 

 above, invisible of course in the gloom. The Redwing's early arrival on 

 our shores, as compared with that of the Fieldfare, is attributable to two 

 causes. In the first place Redwings are more susceptible to cold than 

 Fieldfares ; and, secondly, they are more exclusi^'ely insectivorous. At 

 their arrival Redwings are exceedingly shy and wary ; but after a 

 few weeks this natural shyness of disposition is overcome, and they are 



