Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/157

 former pair before they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied but that now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, or young birds, discovered in some part or other of this island: but then they are always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things: but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer as well as in winter might support them here which maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful winter of 1739-40, that cold north- east winds continued to blow on through April and May, and that these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have written professedly the natural history of particular countries. Now, as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica, says of it that 'maximis in arboribus nidificat'; and of the redwing he says, in the same place, that 'nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus: ova sex caeruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis.' Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of the woodcock, that 'nupta ad nos venit circa aequinoctium vernale'; meaning in Tirol, of which he is a native. And