10 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The Fieldfare (Tardus pilaris). 



A bird of passage, and of more than common interest. It 

 comes to our shores in the autumn and departs in the spring ; 

 and, though British nests and eggs have been reported as taken, I 

 believe the gravest doubt encircles all such statements. I have 

 special reasons for remembering this bird, and I will relate why. 

 On two occasions I have publicly recorded observations of its 

 existence in this country at what were deemed unusual dates, and 

 on both occasions my communications were as publicly called in 

 question, and it was insinuated that I had blundered in my 

 identification, — in short, had mistaken the Mistle- Thrush for the 

 Fieldfare. That such errors are of frequent occurrence with 

 those who do not make birds a particular study is, I freely admit, 

 beyond question, and consequently there is no reason really why 

 an obscure ornithologist like myself should feel hurt at the 

 suggestion of such lamentable ignorance. All the same, the fact 

 remains that in my own estimation I am just as likely to confuse 

 the two species as any two letters of the alphabet. 



In the first case: in 'The Vertebrate Animals of Leicester- 

 shire and Rutland ' I recorded a Fieldfare's exceptionally early 

 appearance at Lowesby on Sept. 2nd, 187 7, — it should have been 

 printed 1878, — and I am at liberty here to amplify this brief 

 notice with a few details, though I would first like to point out 

 that in Mr. J. E. Harting's edition of * The Natural History of 

 Selborne ' there is reference to a Fieldfare shot in a garden near 

 Kirby Muxloe, in Leicestershire, on July 29th, 1864, and for- 

 warded to the editor of ' The Field ' for examination. It had 

 been observed about the garden all the summer. 



With regard to the Fieldfare seen at Lowesby, however, I 

 remember the occasion distinctly. A cheery companion and 

 friend — alas ! long gone from these scenes — and myself had just 

 started out shooting, and we had only got a little distance beyond 

 the plantations that fringe the lower side of the Hall, when my 

 attention was suddenly arrested by a kind of chuckle with which 

 I am infinitely more familiar in mid-winter than during the 

 opening days of Partridge-shooting. The chuckle was repeated 

 more than once, and in a twinkling I descried a Fieldfare perched 

 high up in a lofty tree. I tried to stalk the bird, but it was far 



