BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



71 



BIRDS IN THE GARDEN. 



The writer of an article on " Birds in the Garden " 

 in the Times (May iSth, 1907) is not a bird pro- 

 tector in toto. Writing of experiences in a Hert- 

 fordshire garden, he deplores the necessity for 

 shooting Bullfinches, which he admits do not attack 

 all gardens equally ; he considers that Sparrows, 

 Starlings, Blackbirds, Pigeons, and, in a few dis- 

 tricts, Rooks, have become too numerous. " All 

 over England Sparrows have acquired a fondness 

 for colour which may fairly be compared with the 

 Bower-birds " ; and it is one thing to admire the 

 aesthetic tastes displayed by the distant bower- 

 maker, but quite another thing to find the homely 

 Sparrow adorning his untidy nest with your own 

 laburnums and crocuses. And while the crocus is 

 rousing strange passions in the Sparrow, green 

 peas are a desperate temptation to Jay, Hawfinch 

 and Pigeon. 



" But when all is said that can be said against 

 birds as garden pests, it remains that they are 

 hardly less proper to a garden than flowers. It is 

 the duty of 'the happy gardener' to be more than 

 a specialist. A rock garden gives work for a life 

 time, tulips have provided a whole nation with a 

 mania, a herbaceous border has infinite variety, 

 but a garden is not a laboratory. It should have 

 room for trees, and grass, and bushes, and bees, 

 and butterflies, and birds ; nor do enough gardeners 

 realize that the live things in a garden may be 

 cultivated with almost as certain results as the 

 growing things. The prime need for both, from 

 every point of view, is water. Nothing will cure a 

 Blackbird of a taste for strawberries or a Finch of 

 a liking for buds, but the ravages of both are 

 halved, if plenty of water is at hand. It is of some 

 use to put pans of water in different parts of the 

 garden, but it is infinitely better, where possible, 

 to build a pond for water plants. It may be done 

 easily with beautiful effect by the common and 

 simple device of sinking half-tubs at successive 

 levels and connecting them with pipes, which can 

 soon be entirely concealed by vegetation. Without 

 consideration of the beautiful water plants— many 

 of which, such as the water ranunculus and plain- 

 tain, grow as weeds — a tiny pond will save your 

 fruit and buds from utter destruction, will prevent 

 even mice from gnawing off early peas, and will 

 provide as good a centre of observation as a wild 

 animals' watering-place in a Ceylon forest. 



" Let a garden have a wide definition, and it will 

 be found that in the sum of things what is done to 



encourage the bird will be found of value to the 

 general aesthetic effect. In any real country 

 garden south of the Ouse or east of the Severn you 

 can make tolerably certain of drawing to your 

 garden the best of your warblers, if you provide 

 the sort of cover they delight in. A low tangle of 

 blackberry and rough bushes cannot be resisted by 

 the Garden Warbler and the Blackcap, most liquid 

 of all our singing birds ; and such a tangle may be 

 a great additional glory if properly placed where 

 cultivation slips into the wildness from which it 

 stole its piece. The wineberry and American 

 blackberry might well be planted in such a corner 

 in association with the wilder brambles and 

 rougher bushes, none of which are sufficiently 

 appreciated. They were, one remembers, the 

 special study of Lord de Tabley, and he found not 

 a little poetry in them. Their flower is beautiful, 

 and their leaves have a rare range of colour ; they 

 are singularly interesting as one of the plants 

 which are slowly passing into an evergreen nature, 

 and a particular fascination belongs to their 

 methods both of raising themselves up from their 

 creeping habit and of replanting themselves in 

 successive arches. Would not most gardeners 

 confess that they and their friends would get as 

 much satisfaction from the possession of the 

 diaphanous nest of the Whitethroat or deep cup of 

 the Blackcap as from the parrot tulip or a bunch 

 of rock rose ? The Nightingale is as easy to 

 attract as any other warbler, and his home will be 

 as real an addition as the blackberry patch to the 

 contents of the garden. 



"The most invariable haunt of the Nightingale 

 in any garden that we know was in a corner by a 

 very small and sheltered rose garden. A holly, 

 a laburnum, a flowering box, and a few evergreens 

 were planted to block out an uncomely spot, and 

 from the first year that the screen grew to sufficient 

 size to make a fair covert it has never been without 

 its Nightingales. The cock bird is not the least 

 shy, though the hen bird is very shy ; but it 

 demands a certain depth of gloom. Surely the 

 proper gardener should desire not only the 

 Nightingale, but also the sort of covert that brings 

 him, the depth of gloom and screen of bushes. 

 The Golden-crested Wren loves to whisper about 

 the layers of shade in a deodar or yew. Nor is the 

 chance of seeing a dozen or so young Gold-crests 

 perched along a string that holds the clematis, a 

 garden perquisite to be lightly discarded. The 

 larch and the firs and the acacia attract the three 

 Tits as certainly as the bunches of arabis draw the 



