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sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be 
denied but that now and then we hear of a woodcock^s nest, 
or young birds, discovered in some part or other of this 
island: but then they are always mentioned as rarities, 
and somewhat out of the common course of things: but as 
to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has 
ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the 
nest or young of those species in any part of these king- 
doms. And I the more admire at this instance as extra- 
ordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer 
as well as in winter might support them here which main- 
tains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did 
they choose to stay the summer through.^ From hence it 
^ Both the redwing and fieldfare are stated on some authority to 
have occasionally nested in the British Islands : see Mr. More's 
article on the " Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the nesting 
season," published in " The Ibis" for 1865, p. 19. In " Charlesworth's 
Magazine of Natural History," the late Mr. Blyth reported that several 
instances of the redvring's nesting in Surrey were known to him ; and 
in the same periodical (vol. i. p. 440) he quoted the statement of a dealer 
that a nest of this bird had been taken at Barnet. Yarrell instances a 
nest found at Godalming; and one taken in Leicestershire is recorded by 
Mr. J. H, Ellis in " The Zoologist" for 1864, p. 9248. In Shropshire 
Mr. Eyton has observed that some of these birds remain all the summer 
in his neighbourhood. In May, 1855, the late Dr. Saxby found a nest of 
the redwing at Maintwrog, North Wales. It was placed in a tall Portugal 
laurel ; and he repeatedly observed the bird sitting on her eggs, which 
he afterwards took. The circumstance was recorded by him in " The 
Zoologist'' %r 1861, p. 7427 ; but a more detailed account, copied from 
his private journal, has since been published by his brother, the Rev. 
Stephen Saxby, in his recent work on the " Birds of Shetland," p. 384. 
In the Outer Hebrides Mr. Bullock, in a letter to Dr. Fleming, dated 
23rd April, 1819, mentioned the circumstance of the redwing breeding 
in Harris, where he had observed it in the preceding summer. (See 
Fleming's Hist. Brit. An. p. 65.) In Orkney, Mr. Low says (" Fauna 
Orcadensis," p. 58) that he observed a pair of these birds in Hoy 
throughout the greatest part of the summer, and imagined that they built 
amongst the bushes there, though with the strictest search he could not 
discover the nest. 
In like manner there are several reported instances of the fieldfare 
having remained to breed in this country. Mr. St. John in his " Tour 
in Sutherlandshire," vol. i. p. 206, says that he was shown a nest and 
eggs from near the Spey ; and the bird is reported to have nested also 
