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“ Metis 
ail % 
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Re 
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mc 3 
Teck 
Ay 
Three Feathered Mites 
and pulling out all the nests that may be 
found, whether they contain eggs or not, 
is only silly and thoughtless cruelty. 
Hardly a day passes throughout the 
nesting-season in which I do not find 
nests pulled out and destroyed out of 
sheer mischief. And the little birds 
which nest early in the spring suffer 
very much, because their nests are so 
easy to find before the leaves appear. 
The long-tailed tit’s nest in particular is 
very easily seen in the bare hedges, and 
they lose as many nests as the early 
blackbirds and thrushes. After the 
leaves and all the hedgeside plants grow 
up, they are not so readily found, and 
they then havea little chance of escaping 
notice, 
194 
