FIELDFARE. 
83 
weakly flutter off to the nearest cover, where 
they conceal, and will scarcely again betake 
themselves to flight. When the time of their 
remigration returns, which is sometimes not till 
May has far advanced, they have for some weeks 
been collected in bands larger than usual, as if 
the various flocks had been called in from the 
district around. They now regularly frequent 
some favourite feeding ground, and may be seen 
scattered over the plain or passing overhead now 
with renewed vigour and a noisy flight, as if pre- 
paring for the more lengthened journey which they 
are about to perform. Their roosting places at 
night are either on trees, particularly the pines and 
evergreens, or on the ground. We have undoubted 
authority that they occasionally resort to the 
first for shelter,* and we have often, ourselves, 
intruded on the sleeping grounds in the evening. 
One situation is a whin cover where there is 
abundance of tall grass ; another was a young 
plantation of two or three years growth, among 
long heath : in both places the flock bad alighted, 
and were disturbed so late at night as only to be 
known by their alarm-cry, uttered as they rose. 
Their roost, in these instances, was among the 
long grass and heath. Mr White’s observations 
long since corroborated this fact, for he tells us, 
“ that larkers, in dragging their nets by night, 
frequently catch them in the wheat stubbles.f 
* Selby, I. p. 161 ; Thomp. in Mag. of Zool. & Bot. 
II. p. 433. 
t White, Sir W. J. edit. p. 97. 
