EATEN BY BIRDS. 
181 
the banks of large rivers, margined by lowlands, we 
shall find, that the bulk of them will remain there, and 
feed in those places ; and, in the uplands, we shall ob- 
serve small restless parties only. But in the midland 
and some other counties, the flocks that are resident 
have not always these meadows to resort to, and they 
then feed on the haws as long as they remain. In this 
county, the extensive lowlands of the river Severn in 
open weather are visited by prodigious flocks of these 
birds ; but as soon as snow falls, or hard weather comes 
on, they leave these marshy lands, because their insect 
food is covered or become scarce, visit the uplands, to 
feed on the produce of the hedges, and we see them 
all day long passing over our heads in large flights on 
some distant progress, in the same manner as our larks, 
at the commencement of a snowy season, repair to the 
turnip fields of Somerset and Wiltshire. They remain 
absent during the continuance of those causes which 
incited their migration ; but, as the frost breaks up, and 
even before the thaw has actually commenced, we see a 
large portion of these passengers returning to their 
worm and insect food in the meadows, attended proba- 
bly by many that did not take flight with them— though 
a great number remain in the upland pastures, feeding 
promiscuously as they can. In my younger days, a 
keen, unwearied sportsman, it was always observable, 
that in hard weather these birds increased prodigiously 
in number in the counties far distant from the meadow 
lands, though we knew not the reason ; and we usually 
against this time provided tempting bushes of haws, 
preserved in a barn, to place in frequented hedges, near 
our secret standings. When the fieldfare first arrives, 
its flesh is dqrk, thin, and scurfy ; but, having fed a lit- 
tle time in the hedges, its rump and side veins are cov- 
ered with fat. This is, in part, attributable to suppres- 
sion 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 
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