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and wisdom of their migration ; for they never seem to attain the domestic habits of the common 

 Thrush or Blackbird, which, when driven by distress, will seek relief with the poultry and the 

 refuse of the farm-yard. In some severe winters we have repeatedly taken this commonly wild 

 bird with the hand in a state of complete exhaustion. Colonel Montagu mentions the effects on 

 this bird and the Eedwing during the snow-storm of 1798: — 'They became too weak to shift 

 their quarters to a more southern climate, and thousands were picked up starved to death.' 

 When the ground has been for some time frozen up, we perceive a sure indication of the distress 

 of the Fieldfare, by small parties, of from a pair to five or six, frequenting the open springs and 

 shallow ditches, remaining by the river's side, and endeavouring to find about the moist edges a 

 precarious subsistence. This forenoon (29th January, 1838), after fourteen days of intense frost, 

 we see them sitting associated with the Snipe ; and when alarmed, instead of the alert rising 

 flight and loud chatter of prosperity, they weakly flutter off to the nearest cover, where they 

 conceal, and will scarcely again betake themselves to flight. When the time of their remigration 

 returns, which is sometimes not till May has far advanced, they have for some weeks been 

 collected in bands larger than usual, as if the various flocks had been called in from the district 

 around. They now regularly frequent some favourite feeding-ground, and may be seen scattered 

 over the plains or passing overhead, now with renewed vigour and a noisy flight, as if preparing 

 for the more lengthened journey which they are about to perform. Their roosting-places at 

 night are either on trees, particularly the pines and evergreens, or on the ground. We have 

 undoubted authority that they occasionally resort to the first for shelter ; and we have often, our- 

 selves, intruded on the sleeping-grounds in the evening. One situation is a whin cover where 

 there is abundance of tall grass ; another was a young plantation of two or three years' growth, 

 among long heath : in both places the flock had alighted, and were disturbed so late at night as 

 only to be known by their alarm-cry, uttered as they rose. Their roost, in these instances, was 

 among the long grass and heath. Mr. White's observations long since corroborated this fact ; for 

 he tells us ' that larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat- 

 stubbles.' Mr. Thompson mentions having disturbed them from similar places in Ireland, after 

 they had settled for the night." 



Macgillivray gives the following note about the food of the present species : — " The food of 

 the Fieldfare during winter and spring consists of berries of various kinds, worms, larva?, pupae, 

 and insects, as well as seeds of cereal and other plants. I have never seen it in corn-yards, how- 

 ever, even in the most severe weather ; but it frequently enters gardens in time of snow, to eat the 

 holly berries. It employs a small quantity of fragments of quartz and other hard substances to 

 aid the trituration of its food." Thompson observes on the same subject: — "As a difference of 

 opinion exists among authors on the subject of the Fieldfare's food, I give the contents of the 

 stomachs of seven other individuals examined by me, and which were killed at various times and 

 places during two seasons. Of these, one contained two limacelli (internal shells of naked snails 

 belonging to the genus Limax, Linn.), the remains of coleopterous insects, and some vegetable 

 matter ; this last substance only appeared in the second ; the third was filled with oats alone, 

 though the weather was mild, and had been so for some time before; the fourth contained 

 worms and bits of grass ; these last, together with pieces of straw and the husks of grain, were 

 found in the fifth (the weather was severe and frosty for a week previously) ; the sixth was stored 



