FIELD LARK. 



181 



rump and side-veins are covered with fat. This is, in part, attributable 

 to suppression of perspiration by the cold, and partly to a nutritive 

 farinaceous food ; its flesh at the time becoming bluish and clean. The 

 upland birds are in this state, from, perhaps, the end of November till 

 the end of January, according as the hedge-fruit has held out; and, at 

 this period, they are comparatively tame : afterward, though the flights 

 may be large, they become wild ; and the flesh, assuming its darkness, 

 manifests that their food has not been farinaceous. The distant foreign 

 migrations, which have been stated to take place from the meadows of 

 the Severn, I believe to be only these inland trips ; and that the sup- 

 posed migrators returned to those stations, fat and in good condition, 

 owing to their having fed, during their absence, on the nutritious berry 

 of the white-thorn. I have several times seen the fruit on our hedges 

 refused by these birds, and this too in no very temperate season, but, 

 in all these cases, the summer had been ungenial ; the berries had not 

 ripened well, they were nipped by the frosts of October, and hung on 

 the sprays dark in colour, small, and juiceless in substance. The sum- 

 mer of 1825 produced the finest and largest haws I ever remember. 

 They were in general of a bright red hue, and filled with farinaceous 

 pulp ; and in consequence, though the season was uncommonly mild 

 and open, long before Christmas little wandering parties of these birds 

 consumed the whole of them. 



" Perfectly gregarious as the Fieldfare is, yet we observe every year 

 in some tall hedge-row or little quiet pasture, two or three of them 

 that have withdrawn from the main flocks, and there associate with the 

 blackbird and the thrush. They do not appear to be wounded birds, 

 which from necessity have sought concealment and quiet, but to have 

 retired from inclination ; and I have reason to apprehend that these 

 retreats are occasionally made for the purpose of forming nests, though 

 they are afterwards abandoned without incubation, as I have now 

 before me the egg of a bird which I believe to be that of a Fieldfare, 

 taken from a nest somewhat like that formed by the song-thrush, in 

 1824. Its colour is uniform ; a rather pale blue ; it is larger than that 

 of the thrush, obtuse at both ends, and unlike any egg produced by our 

 known British birds. These retiring birds linger with us late in the 

 season, after all the main flights are departed, as if reluctant to leave us ; 

 but towards the middle or end of April these stragglers unite, form a 

 small company, and take their flight."* 



FIELDLARK. — A name for the Skylark. 



FIG EATER. — A bird so called by Willughby, who says it is 

 found in Yorkshire, where it is called the beam-bird. Mr. Pennant 



