LORD LILFORD'S HOME 7 



they are not always protected with so strong a hand and 

 such loving interest as here. The hawfinch, always a local 

 and capricious bird in its choice of a breeding-place, was 

 long waited for, but nested here at last. 



"Till the spring of the year 1870," Lord Lilford 

 writes,^ " we only knew the hawfinch in the neighbourhood 

 of Lilford as an occasional, and by no means a common, 

 winter visitor. On April 4th of the year just named I 

 observed some half-dozen or more of these birds haunting 

 the old thorn bushes on our lawn ; they remained about 

 for some days, but in spite of minute and protracted search 

 in the most likely localities we could not discover that they 

 attempted to nest with us, and they had all disappeared 

 before the middle of April. A pair or more, however, 

 undoubtedly bred not far off, for in July and August I 

 constantly observed some of the species about our kitchen 

 garden. In the very severe weather of December, 1870 

 and 1 87 1, we were visited by very large flocks of haw- 

 finches ; ai:d since the date last named some of these 

 birds have nested regularly about our pleasure-grounds, and 

 have become only too well known to our gardeners and 

 cottagers from their constant and serious depredations 

 amongst the green peas and other vegetables." 



Curiously enough, as against the establishment of haw- 

 finches there was a gradual falling off in the numbers of 



' The Birds of Northamptonshire, i., 185. 



