474 
PERCHING BIRDS. 
bird, suffering severely in protracted frost, even while other birds are able to retain 
sound condition. The explanation of this must be sought for in the fact that 
it subsists upon worms and various insects rather than upon berries. The adult 
is olive-brown above; a broad line of buffy white passes over the eye; the 
under-parts are white, streaked with brown; and the flanks and under wing- 
coverts are bright rufous. 
The fieldfare (T. pilaris) is the most abundant of all the northern 
Fi.6ldfcilT6 ^ ' 
thrushes, alike in the pine-clad valleys and in the regions of birch. 
Its migrations extend into Northern Africa and as far east as Persia, Turkestan, 
and Northern India, while of late years it has been reported as nesting in Bavaria 
and other parts of Germany. The young on leaving the nest are spotted on the 
back like the young of other thrushes. The birds arrive in Britain with broad 
margins to the feathers of the lower parts, but before the spring comes these edges 
disappear and the spots become more clearly defined. This bird, says Dr. Sharpe, 
“ is one of the most beautiful thrushes in the world, and nothing can be finer than 
to see a flock of newly arrived fieldfares settling on a tree after landing on our 
eastern coasts. Not only the size of the birds, but their rich contrast of colour 
and above all the way in which they hold themselves tend to make them a remark¬ 
able object as they sit on the leafless boughs and are outlined against the sky/’ 
They are always found in flocks, and when danger approaches pack together and 
fly some distance, when they invariably alight on the top of some tree. The 
fieldfare breeds in colonies, and the nests are placed in fir-trees and birches at 
various elevations, some being as much as fifteen feet from the ground. They are 
generally built of long, dry, fine grass, with a coating of mud or clay between the 
outer and inner layers of that material. Professor Collett relates that a fieldfare 
once nested in a milk-pail inside a dairy, and successfully reared its young; and 
Mr. Dresser found a nest in a hollow top of a rotten stump, not a foot above the 
ground. Whenever an intruder approaches their nest, the old birds fly round, 
uttering loud and harsh cries, and thus attract attention to the whereabouts of 
their treasure. The eggs of the fieldfare resemble those of the blackbird, being 
bluish green in ground-colour, speckled and blotched with reddish brown. The 
young are fairly tame when they first leave the nest, but soon become shy and wary 
even on their nesting-grounds. It is possible that their shyness or boldness may 
depend upon the extent to which the birds are molested. Myriads of fieldfares 
annually cross the German Ocean to winter in the British Isles and Central Europe; 
and on one occasion a solitary straggler landed as far west as Iceland. The adult 
male has the head and hind-neck ashy grey, the feathers of the crown having 
dark centres; the back and wings-coverts are rich chestnut-brown; the wings and 
tail blackish brown; the eyebrows whitish; and the under-parts rich ochre, thickly 
spotted with black. 
The birds of the genus Merula are true thrushes in all 
■LUG x>IcLCKDirdS. 
structural characters, and differ from the foregoing chiefly in the 
important particular that the plumage of the adult male is more or less widely 
distinct from that of the female. In a number of species the male bird is black 
or slaty grey. No fewer than sixteen of the species referred to this genus are 
peculiar to South America; while twelve inhabit Australia, and fourteen are found 
