FIELDFARE— WHITE'S THRUSH. 
5 
enormous army of fieldfares had completely left the country. 
It was somewhat singular that, although these fieldfares 
were tamer than sparrows, yet they were as fat as butter, 
and I never ate any more delicious birds in my life 
This is an occurrence that may happen once in a century." 
In this calculation the Colonel seems to have been right. 
Mr. Meade-Waldo remarks in the " Victoria History " 
that " in very mild winters scarcely any come to the south 
of the county, a few only passing northwards in the 
spring." 
5. Turdus varius. White's Thrush. 
A rare accidental visitor. 
The first recorded British specimen, and the only one 
ever procured in the county, was shot near Heron Court, 
near Christchurch, on January 24th, 1828, by the Earl 
of Malmesbury. 
It was believed by Eyton to be a new species, and 
was named by him after Gilbert White ; its capture is 
thus described : " It attracted his (Lord Malmesbury's) 
attention, in disturbing it in passing through a plantation, 
where it appeared to have established its haunt in a high 
furze brake, as it returned to it repeatedly before he could 
succeed in shooting it. Its flight was undulating, similar 
to that of a mistletoe thrush, of which, when he first saw 
it on wing, he thought it a variety. It is a female, was 
solitary, and, notwithstanding the season of the year, was 
plump and heavy." ^ 
The figures in Eyton's " Rarer British Birds," in Yarrell's 
' A History of the Rarer British Birds," by T. C. Eyton. 1836. 
D 
