Both blackbirds and thrushes began to devour the pale-red bunches hanging on the mountain-ashes as early as the 4th of September last year.

Starlings are fond of elder-berries: a flock alighting on a bush black with ripe berries will clear the bunches in a very short time.

Haws, or peggles, which often quite cover the hawthorn bushes, are not so general a food as the fruit of the briar.
Hips are preferred; at least, the fruit of the briar is the first of the two to disappear.

The hip is pecked open (by thrushes, redwings, and blackbirds) at the tip, the seeds extracted, and the part where it is attached to the stalk left, just as if the contents had been sucked out.

Greenfinches, too, will eat hips.
Haws are often left even after severe frosts; sometimes they seem to shrivel or blacken, and may not perhaps be palatable then.
Missel-thrushes and wood-pigeons eat them.