permitted of movement among the creeping things which form these birds'
food, was naturally resorted to. Thrushes and blackbirds, although they
do not pack--that is, regularly fly in flocks--undoubtedly migrate when
pressed by weather.

They are well known to arrive on the east coast from Norway in numbers
as the cold increases. I see no reason why we may not suppose that in
very severe and continued frost the thrushes and blackbirds round London
fly westwards towards the milder side of the island. It seems to me that
when, some years since, I used to stroll round the water meadows in a
western county for snipes in frosty weather, the hedges were full of
thrushes and blackbirds--quite full of them.

Now, though there were thrushes and blackbirds about the brooks by
London last winter, there were few in the hedges generally. Had they,
then, flown westwards? It is my belief that they had. They had left the
hard-bound ground about London for the softer and moister lands farther
west. They had crossed the rain-line. When frost prevents access to food
in the east, thrushes and blackbirds move westwards, just as the
fieldfares and redwings do.

That the fieldfares and redwings do so I can say with confidence,
because, as they move in large flocks, there is no difficulty in tracing
the direction in which they are going. They all went west when the
severe weather began. On the southern side of London, at least in the
districts I am best acquainted with, there was hardly a fieldfare or
redwing to be seen for weeks and even months. Towards spring they came
back, flying east for Norway. As thrushes and blackbirds move singly,
and not with concerted action, their motions cannot be determined with
such precision, but all the facts are in favour of the belief that they
also went west.

That they were killed by the frost and snow I utterly refuse to credit.
Some few, no doubt, were--I saw some greatly enfeebled by
starvation--but not the mass. If so many had been destroyed their bodies
must have been seen when there was no foliage to hide them, and no
insects to quickly play the scavenger as in summer. Some were killed by
cats; a few perhaps by rats, for in sharp winters they go down into the
ditches, and I saw a dead redwing, torn and disfigured, at the mouth of
a drain during the snow, where it might have been fastened on by a rat.
But it is quite improbable that thousands died as was supposed.

Thrushes and blackbirds are not