138 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
any one who will take the trouble to search for 
them. 
The chaffinch, unfortunately, is a bird with a bad 
character. He is detested by the gardener, whose 
seed-beds he ravages, and is in equally bad repute 
with the farmer, owing to his fondness for seedling 
turnips and shooting corn, &c. His great passion, 
however, is for pungent seeds; andif he should 
happen to light upon a plot of freshly-sown radishes, 
or mustard and cress, he will pursue his investigations 
until five-sixths of the seed is destroyed. Even in the 
flower-garden he is mischievous at times, and seems 
to have a special partiality for the flowers of the 
polyanthus, which he destroys as soon as the buds 
show signs of bursting. And that there are good 
srounds for the dislike of the farmer may be judged 
from the fact that three acres of ground sown with 
turnips, in which the young plants were just showing 
above the soil, were entirely stripped by chaffinches 
in the course of a single day. 
Robbery on so large a scale as this, however, 1s 
most unusual, and, as a general rule, the losses due 
to the bird in the course of the year do not amount 
to any great sum. On the other hand, it eats an im- 
mense quantity of noxious seeds—and every such seed 
devoured is a probable weed destroyed—and also 
kills myriads of insects, so that its mischievous quali- 
ties are counterbalanced by its services. That this 
is a well-ascertained fact may be judged from Prévost- 
Paradol’s account of its diet, which is as follows :-— 
‘‘January, seeds, berries, and kernels of fruits ; 
