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. 
u Perfectly gregarious as the Fieldfare is, yet we observe every year 
in some tall hedge-row or httle 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that have withdrawn from the main flocks, and there associate with the 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.”* 
FI ELD LARK. — 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 
