THE GREENFINCH 95 



Indeed, they are a constant terror to the farmer, for from 

 his turnip-seed they go to his corn, and thence to his bean- 

 fields, champing up the ripe beans with their powerful bills. 

 They care not whether the beans lie open on the black plants 

 or be left scattered near the farm-house by the harvester — 

 they are sure to get them. And when they have champed 

 the last bean, they flock to the lonely stacks, turning them 

 green with their glossy bodies, covering the rich, lovely heap 

 with a murrain evil as locusts ; but they are more easily 

 affrighted, for many a shot is fired into the living green 

 and a score or a score and a half of mangled green balls 

 are left behind, food for ferrets. Still the nuisances return 

 again and again, until mayhap the flock is thinned, when 

 they often fall victims to the wide-mouthed sparrow-nets. 

 And then comes the pinch in dead winter, when the grain 

 is all housed and eaten. Then in the pale sunny mornings 

 of early winter you may see flocks of them drop softly from 

 the blue grey sky into the decorative alders by the cold 

 riverside — they together with the long-tailed tits of sporting 

 flight, and the garrulous redpolls, whose little wings em- 

 brace the cold air as they fly more quickly in short curves 

 from alder to alder. But the company of the tits, redpolls, 

 and pick-cheeses is deserted as soon as the barley is sown, 

 for they are off after the grain ; and once again the farmer 

 curses their green limbs as he sees them running over the 

 glistening clods like living plants, so green is their plumage 

 in the winter sunshine. And such is the greenfinch, a dirty 

 bird in his youth, yet loving a quiet paradise to court and 

 build in, and a bold, quarrelsome thief in his manhood. And 

 his end is to feed the rat-catcher's ferrets. 



