Birds of Britain 



increased so as to be beyond all limits ? Wherever man 

 settles, there, sooner or later, will he make his appearance, 

 sitting on the roof or in the shrubbery, and uttering, 

 especially in the mornings, his monotonous and impertinent 

 chirp. In spring he pulls up the crocuses, later he turns 

 his attention to young and succulent plants just forcing 

 their way above the ground, or if a new-sown lawn be the 

 object of one's solicitude he will make it his business to see 

 that the hoped-for grass-plot remains a barren tableland. As 

 summer comes on, the drain-pipes are blocked by his un- 

 tidy nest — a mere heap of straw and hay warmly lined with 

 feathers. If a tree or the ivy against the house be chosen 

 for a site, the nest is better made, and is in fact a substantial 

 dome-built structure with the entrance at the side, but its 

 position is readily betrayed by long untidy bits of straw 

 left trailing outside. The eggs are five or six in number 

 and bluish white spotted and blotched with ash brown. By 

 the end of summer he will have reared two broods of five 

 or six youngsters each, and for a time our gardens are 

 allowed a brief respite, while old and young gather in 

 immense flocks in the harvest-fields, and then following the 

 grain they spend some weeks round the freshly-made stacks 

 in the farm-yard. As winter comes on they return once 

 more to towns and gardens, where, by assuming a cold and 

 starved appearance, they beg and frequently receive our 

 charity, till the blooming of the spring flowers once more 

 enables them to start their round of theft and damage. So 

 much for their relations towards man, and it is to be feared 

 that their relations towards other birds have also no redeem- 

 ing point, for they are so quarrelsome that none of the more 



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