Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/32

8 be gone at my approach. There is some old saying to the effect that adversity makes strange bedfellows, and the truth of it occurred very forcibly to me when one morning a winter or so ago I found some Redwings collected in a thorn-bush by the roadside, sitting quite still, and apparently resigned to any fate that might overtake them. Noticing a dark and much larger-looking object in the same bush, and having my curiosity aroused, I went up to it, and discovered that their companion in misfortune was a Squirrel. The poor thing, tamed by hunger and cold, was as confiding as the Redwings, and seemed to be sharing their frugal fare of hips and haws.

I am of opinion, nevertheless, that this species is able to withstand the occasional severity of our winters much more readily than the Fieldfare, owing to its Thrush-like habit of frequenting, during hard frosts, hedgerow bottoms, and feeding on snails and the pupæ of Lepidoptera. Its haunts and habits somewhat resemble those of the latter bird, and it arrives in this country generally some few days in advance of its equally well-known congener. In the autumn of 1894 I saw and heard both species for the first time on the same afternoon, viz. October 15th. My attention was attracted to the Redwing by its familiar "wheet wheet" long before I perceived it, with a companion, perched aloft on the dead branch of a tree in a hedgerow. I oppose the doctrine that Redwings by nature are exclusively insectivorous, and only revert to berries as a last resource; on their arrival in this country they immediately set to work in small flocks on the hips and haws, though I admit that later in the year, in open weather, they may frequently be seen in the pastures feeding on worms and snails and other insects. They frequent the meadows by day, and towards the close of the afternoon, just as dusk is coming on, may be seen in little straggling parties repairing to the shelter of shrubberies and plantations, where they spend the night. The Redwing is easily distinguishable from the Song-Thrush by a broadish white stripe over the eye, in addition to which it is a bird of gregarious habits, which the other is not. As an article of food its flesh is considered very delicate —"better than the Fieldfare," I have heard a good judge of things edible declare; but this, of course, must be a matter of individual taste. Personally, I should say that a fat Blackbird in the