FIELDFARE. 
175 
Their song, which is soft and melodious, is sometimes heard 
-so early as the end of February and the beginning of March, 
if the season has been mild and propitious. 
Their alarm note is a ‘yack,’ or ‘chack, chack, chack,’ which 
whenever heard arrests your attention. They have also a 
harsh chatter. 
Fieldfares build in societies, as many as two hundred nests 
and upwards having been found within a small circuit of the 
forest. The same situations appear to be resorted to from 
year to year from some cause of predilection or other, as 
with the Rooks. 
The nest, which is placed in pine or fir trees, at a height 
of from four to forty feet from the ground, is made of small 
sticks, grass, and weeds, cemented together with a small 
quantity of clay, and lined with fine grass. It is for the 
most part placed against the trunk of the tree, but sometimes 
at a considerable distance from it, towards the smaller end 
of the thicker branches. 
The eggs are from three to five or six in number, of a 
pale bluish green, spotted with dark reddish brown. The 
hurried flight and loud harsh cries of the owners, if alarmed, 
readily lead to their discovery. 
The young are not able to fly until the first week in 
August. 
Male; weight, four ounces; length, ten inches and a half, 
to ten and three quarters; bill, orange at the base, most so 
on the lower mandible, brownish black at the end; the inside 
of the mouth is also orange; between the bill and the eye 
there is a black mark, which follows also under it, and a 
dark line passes backwards in a semicircle. Iris, dark brown, 
the eyelids are yellow; over the eye is a streak of pale grey, 
or buff', sometimes inclining to pale yellowish white; there 
are bristles at the base of the bill. Forehead, slightly tinged 
with brown; head on the crown, ash grey, most of the feathers 
having a dusky streak on their centre, most conspicuous in 
the spring; on the sides it is also ash grey; neck in front 
and on the sides, light yellowish red, thinly marked with 
rather elongated triangular-shaped brownish black spots; nape, 
ash grey; chin and throat, yellowish pale orange streaked 
with black; breast above, light yellowish red, spotted with 
triangular-shaped brownish black marks; it is paler, almost 
white, on the sides, with larger and broader rounded spots, 
and below it is white or greyish white tinged with red. Back 
