Bird Notes and News 



69 



go into the sea not far from the shore. 

 Being practically indestructible, they 

 drift about until at length brought up 

 under the urge of wind and tide along a 

 stretch of coast. There they form a 

 margin of black filth deadly to any winged 

 thing that comes in contact with it. 

 Where I found my Kingfisher on a half- 

 eroded sandbank in Lake Timsah, a belt 

 of it lay on the windward side immediately 

 under a group of nesting-holes. Nothing 

 more efficacious could be conceived. The 

 old birds bringing food are limed if they 

 settle at the edge of the water ; the young 

 are caught in the fatal stickiness on their 

 very first exit from the nest. 



Imagine any bird smothered in tar. 

 Imagine every feather soaked and clogged 



with the filthy stuff. Imagine every web 

 draggled and the buoyancy gone out of it. 

 Above all is a pied Kingfisher deprived of 

 flight by such means, a pitiable thing. 

 Is there any bird more utterly dependent 

 on his wings than he ? Death comes 

 slowly and unmercifully after hours of 

 agony. The best that can happen to a 

 bird once fouled is a sudden blow from 

 a Hawk or Gull. It is utterly impossible 

 for them to cleanse themselves, and there 

 is no natural means of cleansing them. 

 Under the application of the only solvent, 

 petrol, they die. Starvation, exposure to 

 the full glare of the sun for many birds, 

 the extremity of thirst, are the lot of the 

 victims. It seems, too, that the vile stuff 

 has an irritant effect on the skin. 



Economic Ornithology 



THE BULLFINCH 



In reply to an unfavourable article on 

 the BuUfinch, published in the Morning 

 Post, the Rev. W. A. Shaw writes from 

 Peper Harow Rectory, Surrey : — 



" I am always glad to see a party of Bull- 

 finches clearing the buds off any fruit trees in 

 my garden, and look upon them as useful 

 friends, and not in any way beautiful sinners. 

 Every gooseberry bud they have dropped, 

 when I have thrown my cap at them, has been 

 grubbed. Only one or two bushes have been 

 attacked, out of many, and these have borne 

 some fruit and done well the next season. 

 In Surrey I have three quince trees and to 

 one of these, at intervals of two or three years, 

 from three to five Bullfinches pay a visit, 

 and stick just to one part at the top of the 

 oldest tree and the side branches of a young 

 one. The fruit crop on the trees attacked was 

 heavy, and the pruned parts bore the next 

 season. So, too, with medlers and damsons in 

 Sussex. For a week a party of six Bullfinches 

 worked a patch of heather on Peper Harow 

 Common, but I have never seen any other 

 part touched. One of the finest sights of 

 the gaden is to see an old cock enjoy a rasp- 

 berry, drupel by drupel, and I wish the Black- 

 bird fed as slowly ! Bullfinches do good too 

 by eating the seeds of dock, thistles and 



dandelions, as well as those of hips and spindle- 

 tree. May observation conquer a wrong 

 tradition." 



Writing on the same bird in the East 

 Anglian Daily Times (February 27th, 

 1923), Mr. FeHx Walton says :— 



" There is one bird which, during the next 

 two months, will be subjected to much destruc- 

 tion, and fall victims to the gun of the gardener 

 and fruit-grower by thousands. This is the 

 Bullfinch (P}Trhula Europaea). He is a truly 

 British bird, and looks it, and the cock is 

 one of the most brilliantly coloured birds 

 of all our residents. Unfortunately he has 

 got a bad character, and his enemies have 

 no mercy on him ; they hang him, or, rather, 

 shoot him first and try him afterwards, wherein 

 he has my sympathy, because I do not believe 

 his character is as bad as it is represented. 

 We cannot, however, get away from the fact 

 that he takes heavy toll of the young buds of 

 fruit trees in the Spring of the year, but Nature 

 provides such a surplus of these that cherry 

 and plum trees, for instance, can spare these 

 in large quantities and not suffer, because no 

 cherry or plum tree could bear the enormous 

 crop of fruit which would be forthcoming if 

 these all came to perfection. In fact, in the 

 case of plums, we generally have to thin them 

 out ourselves when they get about half-grown , 



