FIELDFARE. 
85 
production of other colonies, to visit us in future years. 
We had been out all day, rambling through those almost 
impassable forests, and after having climbed many a tree 
to no purpose,—to nests of the previous summer, which 
we supposed must have once been tenanted by the birds 
of which we were in search,—were returning home weary 
and disappointed, when suddenly the monotonous silence 
of the woods was broken by the loud harsh cries of a 
colony of Fieldfares, which, alarmed at our approach, 
were anxiously watching over their newly-established 
dwellings. We very soon forgot our toils in the delight 
which we experienced at the discovery of several of their 
nests, and were surprised to find them, so contrary to 
the habits of the rest of the genus with which we are 
acquainted, breeding in society. Their nests were at 
various heights above the ground, from four to thirty or 
forty feet or upwards, and mixed with old ones of the 
preceding summer; they were for the most part placed 
against the trunk of the spruce fir-tree; some were, how¬ 
ever, at a considerable distance from it, towards the 
smaller end of the thicker branches. They resemble most 
nearly those of the ring ouzel; the outside is composed 
of sticks and coarse grass, and weeds gathered wet, 
matted together with a small quantity of clay, and lined 
with a thick bed of fine dry grass; none of them yet 
contained more than three eggs, although we afterwards 
found that five were more commonly the number than four, 
and that even six were very frequent; they are very similar 
to those of the blackbird, and even more so to those of 
the ring ouzel and the redwing, but do not vary so much; 
indeed so closely do the eggs of the four species resemble 
each other, that a drawing of one might apply to all. 
They are all sometimes so closely freckled throughout 
that the colour of the freckles predominates; they all 
