March IS, 1877. ) 



JOURNAL OF HORriCOIiTUBS AND COTTAGE QAKDE^ER. 



203 



Parsons. 2. J. C. Lamacraft. Tcreits.— 1, F. Hod.ling. a, T. Homes 



TAILS.— :, O. Parsons. S, J. F. Loversidge. ' . ._.i .> t i„ 



TacMPETERS.— 1, P. K. Spencer, 

 0. Parsons. Seluso C" 



,—1 anti 2, J. Andrews. 



_ _ J."^Vood(orcl. Aky othee Vahiett.— 1 



1, C. Howard, 2, R. T. Harris. S, J, Chandler. 



SQUIRRELS— HEDGEHOGS— BULLFINCHES. 

 I H.1VE read with interest the articles of J. Gadd and "An 

 Old GAiirENisG Boy " upon " Squirrels as Depredators " in our 

 Journal of February 22ad, and I have waited to see whether 

 more letters would follow, but as no more have appeared I now 

 claim room for a reply. My f^ardener friends must allow me to 

 E.iy that all men have their class prejadices and class dislikes. 

 The latter sometimes rise to simple hatreds. The dislike of some 

 gardeners to bird^ and animals may be classed among them. 



My aim is truth, apart from sentiment on the one hand and 

 unreasoning destruotioa on the other; also I am always, I hope, 

 open to conviction. That there must be a balance preserved 

 throughout natare is, lam sure, necessary. In England as to 

 smaller birds that balance has been upset by the destruction of 

 the Lsvrk tribe by gamekeepers. They are the only men who 

 are allowed always to carry a gun. The carrying of swords by 

 gentlemen in the last century had to be put down by law because 

 of the destruction to human life caused by men going about 

 armed, aud I wish something of the sort could bo done as to the 

 keepers' guns. The men " get out of bed the wroug side," or 

 the chimney smokes, or the wife scolds, or the master is angry, 

 or last night's beer lingers in the head: the armed keeper avenges 

 himself by shooting every bird he sees and every squirrel on a 

 beech tree. If every man in England carried every day a loaded 

 gun I believe murders would abound all over the country. 



Take now the squirrel. I have lived twenty years with them 

 around me, and have suffered no harm ? Why? Because there 

 Me millions upon millions of beech nuts in the shrubbery upon 

 which the animals feed. Under quite altered conditions I would 

 not advise the over-preservation of pquirrels, though indeed 

 they never abound save where the beech mast is plentiful. Keep 

 a tame sq'iirrel, let him out into your garden where there are 

 no beech trees, and he will find his way to the peaches, &:c. I 

 censure strongly indiscriminate slaughter of that unique animal 

 the squirrel. 'Then I am sure they are constantly blamed by 

 the dishonest. A head gardener who was proved to be dishonest, 

 and confessed his dishonesty at last — he was in the habit of 

 Bending his master's fruit to the large city near, and being ques- 

 tioned as to the scarcity of the fruit he always pleaded aa an 

 excuse the squirrels. Another man, dismissed for the same 

 reason, did the same. Masters and mistresses who read this 

 paper — and many do — I appeal to you against total destruction 

 of squirrels where there is beech mast for them, aud where there 

 are no plantations of small firs, the young ends of which I have 

 said they nibble oS. 



Again I ask that when it is necessary that these animals be 

 destroyed that no traps be used, at least unless they be of a kind 

 to catch them alive and uninjured, when the trap can be plunged 

 into water and animal drowned. It is better, however, to shoot 

 them : a nice occupation for master himself, by the way, who 

 will only kill a limited number, for I have known gardeners with 

 a turn for shooting waste their time — I mean their master's — 

 hour after hour walking abotit with a gun. Stooping and work- 

 ing make the back ache, walking with gun on shoulder is no 

 work at all. 



I notice in last week's Journal that my words extracted from 

 the French ministerial order are questioned as to harmlessness 

 of hedgehoga. These poor animals have suffered terribly from 

 class hatreds. The cowman declared they sucked the cows— a 

 thing impossible because their mouths were toe small, but it 

 was sufficient for a dishonest cowman to make his master believe 

 this nonsense. Then the gardeners in old times used to declare 

 that the hedgehogs rolled themselves on the fruit and walked 

 away with them on their spines ; but in truth their spines are 

 80 arranged by nature that no fruit will stick on them it the 

 experiment be tried. The poor hedgehog was perfectly free of 

 blame in both cases. Its usual food is beetles, worms, slugs 

 andsn.iils, also frogs, mice, and even snakes. Oooasionally it 

 ia said to eat eggs, and this is the point urged by " An Old Sub- 

 scRrBER." I am surprised to hear, however, that the hedgehog 

 can eat any than a small egg. What, however, is truly said by 

 "An Old St:BscRirEn" of the hedgehog may be said of birds 

 and squirrels, " they require keeping in bounds ;" but I think 

 the actaal usefulness of the hedgehog very greatly exceeds his 

 powers or habits of injury, and it nowhere is very abundant. 



Returning to the squirrel. There was a custom in some parts 

 ol England for the riff raff of each village, the idle men and 

 boya, and, worse than either, the hobbedehoys, to go out in the 

 woods and plantations every St. Andrew's day, November 30th, 

 armed with sticks and weapons to hunt squirrels. A number 

 of thefc they maimed, bruised, wounded, and killed ; but the 

 real object was, under pretence of killing squirn-Ig. to pick at or 

 Ret hold of game and rabbits, to break hedges and plantations 

 and get firewood. The day ended by a supper at the public 

 honse, at which the game and rabbits were eaten, and the land- 



lord benefited much by the quantity of beer drunk. The poor 

 squirrel has had a bid time of it — blamed wrongly, tortured, 

 and put forward as a pretence. Its beauty, grace of limb and 

 action, appealed all in vain to the cruel. 



I now turn to the subject of the bullfinch, and I am sorry to 

 say I hive not a single good word to say for him. Naturally 

 and untaught he has no song. Unlike the chaffinch or the gold- 

 finch (would that the birdcatchers had not almost exterminated 

 them), or the linnet, he never cheers us with his song— he never 

 makes the garden joyous with music. His habits are shy, and 

 repelling, and unsocial. He lives almost all the year in the 

 woods. His colours are handsome, though rather gaudy perhaps, 

 but his shape is as unploasing as a bulldog's. lie remains fat 

 from man's dwelling except in the very early spring or late 

 winter, and he then comes a destroyer. Unfortunately bull- 

 finches are on the increase. They do not pay to catch, for they 

 cannot sing and cannot be taught to sing, except when taken 

 from the neat or in their brown nestiug feathers. And then 

 there are no hawks to kill them (oh, those keepers I) So unto 

 our gardens they come in February, and fir^t begin with the 

 Gooseberry bads. In a very few minutes all except on the 

 extreme ends of the shoots are picked out and eaten. Then 

 next they attack currant buds aud then the plum buds, and they 

 are eaten — nothing left but little empty cups all up the branches 

 of gooseberry, currant, and plum tree, and so the crop is gone. 

 This mild winter they have been unusually destructive in the 

 gardens around : rather strange this, but as holly berries were 

 nil so perhaps were the other berries of the hedges. I must 

 pronounce a sentence of death upon the bullfinch. I hold not 

 to sentiment but reason. Apparently little care was taken to 

 provide this mild winter against the depredations of the bull- 

 finch, and hence most gardens have suilered. 



The best plan in regard to gooseberry bushes, especially those 

 of upright growth (with which only the plan can be well carried 

 out), is early in the winter to tie them close up with a withy or 

 a bit of wild clematis or tar string ; bend their branches together 

 in a mass ; and though the birds will eat the outer buds they 

 cannot get in to eat the inner. When the leaflets come out 

 untie the trees, for it ia only the buds as buds that are cared for. 

 Another plan is to get some balls of the thin twine — a loose, very 

 thin, flossy, yet strong string used by saddlers (it ia very cheap), 

 catch it on the branches, crossing and recrossing. Mr. BiiUy 

 thinks it a net, and, like all thieves, objects to be caught. White- 

 wash, too, they do not like. Shavings and little flying flags or 

 paper Mr. Bally is up to. They might have frightened his 

 great-great-great-great-great-grandmother when she was young, 

 but these are days of enlightenment and school boards. Bull- 

 finches must be shot down or killed in some humane manner, 

 they are no good, they do only harm. I am sorry to have to 

 write this, but a useless thief, though he wears a velvet cap and 

 a red waistcoat, must be got rid of. Germany will always 

 supply us with the best piping birds, and in her forests the 

 stock of birds is inexhaustible, and a good trade is made by the 

 German bird-teachers. 



In conclusion I would say. Do not allow the squirrel to be ex- 

 terminated, but keep him where his natural supply of food is 

 provided. Do not exterminate the hedgehog, for his usefulness 

 is greater than his powers of injury. But do if you can thin- 

 down with no sparing hand the Bullfinch, for he is only to a 

 degree ornamental; he is not useful, and is a very injurious 

 bird. — Wiltshire Eectob. 



THE CRYSTAL PALACE BIRD SHOW. 



(Continued.) 

 The awards in the four Lizard classes were disposed of to 

 birds of the Gold and Silver-spangled stamp, pure and simple, 

 without any regard being paid to the pedantic and fatuous 

 notions of "pencilled" or "semi-pencilled" birds. To attempt 

 to estiblish classes for Lizards otherwise than "spangled" birds 

 would be an attempt at hair-splitting, anything but wise and 

 advantageous to the Lizard Canary fancy. The idea, evidently, 

 is a fon'l one, and about on a par with that which occurred 

 some years ago when an attempt was made to introduce " blue '' 

 Lizards, which are as unlikely as a blue dahlia. It is a treat 

 to UP, and one we never become satiated with, looking (not 

 in the way of a mere glance) at the Lizards. Class 20 com- 

 menced the lot, and we could not think otherwise than that the 

 first- prize bird fG30, Ritchie) was a bouncing specimen in all 

 points— a decid.;d win over the others in the class. The com- 

 petition rested more with Nos. CIO. second (Salt); 029, third 

 (Reid) ; and Bunting's 023, extra third. No. 033 (Fairbrass) would 

 have had a forward lolace, to judge from appearance, bar the 

 foul feather which did appear iu the shoulders, and which must 

 have been the means of lowering its flag. The class numbered 

 twentysix, aud was a tolerably good one, excepting hero and 

 there of a bird or two being poor. Of the two dozen Silvers 

 Mr Bunting landed a clever first in fine condition, a decicied 

 win although it must have run a dogged race with Mr. lair- 

 braea's second (058), Mr. Salt's third, and Mr. Ritchie s equal 



