94 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



scales, you learn that the birds are of great size, for the old 

 birds carry the sacs of meconium away until the progeny 

 is large, when they dung where they list — dirty birds that 

 they are. Now seize one. As you hold him screaming in 

 your hand, all the rest have blundered out of the filthy nest 

 and run away, for they cannot fly ; and indeed it is their 

 custom to leave the nest before they fly, so it is no startling 

 innovation. 



And if the naturalist hunt the hedges well, he may find 

 a dozen nests, as I have done, in a short hundred yards ; but 

 the young are best left alone, for they are useless as songsters, 

 though the farmer likes them to feed his ferrets, for he has 

 scarce a greater enemy than the greenfinch. And if you 

 watch, you will know why. Any day in summer, if you 

 frequent greenfinch-land enough, you may suddenly come 

 upon a chattering crush of birds sitting on some long thin 

 branch, eagerly reaching their open mouths to another bird 

 sitting on a higher branch. 'Tis the greenfinch feeding her 

 nestlings upon the farmer's turnip-seed. And such a com- 

 motion they make in the tree-tops, all greedily fighting for 

 a turn at the mother's crop, feeding upon the turnip-seed 

 mash like pigs. Then go 3^ou to the turnip-seed patch, that 

 feeding-ground of the linnet tribe, and mark the flocks upon 

 flocks of them feeding ravenously upon the farmer's ripe 

 seed — their favourite dish — and rejoice that their end is 

 often to fill a ferret's long lean stomach. 



Later on, you may see flocks of them with other thieves 

 in the wheat-fields — pairs here and there fighting fiercely 

 for their food, for they are pugnacious, quarrelsome birds, 

 especially in the hard, black days of winter, when food is 

 scarce, and they scour the country-side with chaffinches, 

 bramblings, and buntings, hens and cocks all together, as is 

 the custom of the finches and buntings, all hunting over the 

 stubble and " new-la3's " for food. At such season, so intent 

 are they on fighting, that they will allow you to approach 

 within a yard of them. 



