HAWS AND HEPS 
180 
plover, are in some places not uncommonly taken and 
sold conjointly with them in the London market ; and 
probably the habitual eater of them only can distinguish 
a sensible difference. 
Prognostications and signs, a great amusement, and 
the ground-work of belief to our forefathers, have, in 
general, pretty much declined with us ; the repeated 
falsity of most of them having destroyed their reputa- 
tion. We know so little, if any thing, of the actuating 
causes of seasons and their change, or the combinations 
effecting results, that no safe conclusion can be formed 
of any present events influencing the future. Whatever 
our almanacs may do, few persons of credit will venture 
now to predict, from what we call natural causes, a hot 
summer, or a severe winter ; yet that very ancient idea, 
amongst country people, that 44 years of store of haws 
and heps do commonly portend cold winters,” still lin- 
gers with us. However warmly we assent to the fun- 
damental truth, the merciful consideration of Provi- 
dence, in providing food for the necessities of the little 
fowls of the air, which, perhaps, piously gave rise to 
the observation, almost every year proves, that any con- 
clusions drawn from these 44 stores of haws and heps” 
are perfectly fallacious. The birds that feed chiefly 
upon the fruit of the white thorn, and the wild rose, 
are the fieldfare (turdus pilaris), and the redwing (tur- 
dus iliacus) ; and that they, do so, every sportsman has 
had the most manifest conviction : yet it has been said 
recently, that these creatures do not eat these fruits ; 
and said too by an eminent and amiable man, with whom 
I have frequently had the honor of conversing, and al- 
ways with profit.* Were he living, his love of science 
would encourage my observations, though not in unison 
with his opinion : my breath shall not agitate his ashes, 
nor will his spirit, I am certain, frown in anger at my 
lines. It must be premised, that these birds, generally 
speaking, give the preference to insect food and worms ; 
and when flights of them have taken their station near 
* Substance of a paper read before the Royal Society, Nov. 27, 
1824. See Zoological Magazine, vol. i. 
