12 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



shelter and concealment afforded by the brushwood and under- 

 growth, and so bivouac for the night. I have been reminded that 

 Mr. Seebohm, in a most delightful chapter on the Fieldfare, 

 writes: — "Instances are alleged of these birds having been 

 flushed from the stubbles or the pastures at dusk; but this is 

 the Fieldfare's feeding-hour ; and if shrubberies be near at hand, 

 it is there they spend the night." This is a decided expression 

 of opinion, and comes from a great authority ; but though Field- 

 fares may feed at dusk, a statement I venture to question, I 

 doubt their doing so between the hours of ten and eleven at 

 night, at which time, I repeat, I have often disturbed them from 

 the open grass fields. 



Nevertheless, it is one thing to detect the slips and question 

 the statements of previous writers, to whom we all owe so much; 

 quite another to write a book ; and I can only trust that any 

 criticisms of mine, wherever they may appear, will not be regarded 

 as written in a captious, cavilling spirit. I am too well aware 

 that many of my predecessors, in whose footsteps I am humbly 

 and laboriously treading, have forgotten more than I can ever 

 hope to know. 



It is, of course, notorious that this species frequently breeds 

 in large colonies. I have had its eggs from Norway, and was 

 much struck by their resemblance to plain as well as handsome 

 eggs of the Blackbird and the Ring- Ousel, with which, I should 

 imagine, they may very easily be confounded at times by even 

 expert oologists. Fieldfares have little knowledge of economy, 

 otherwise they would better husband their resources in the 

 matter of food supply. They will strip bushes of hips and haws 

 in open weather when an insectivorous diet would prove equally 

 sustaining, and then when a spell of frost and snow is over the 

 country and there is nothing to be extracted from the fields, the 

 produce of the hedges which has been prematurely attacked is 

 liable to run short. 



I have dwelt at some length on this species, as it is both 

 well-known and a favourite. In short, what the Swallow is to 

 the spring, the Fieldfare is to the autumn, — they each in turn 

 serve to mark an epoch in time's revolving wheel. 



