336 THE CHAFFINCH. 



sight of the poor bleeding bird which lay dead at his feet. Thus the 

 melody of the vernal thrush, and the plaintive notes of the ring-dove, 

 scarcely ever announced to us the arrival of that interesting time of 

 the year when Nature awakes from her long and dreary sleep of 

 winter. These sweet choristers of the grove were said to do mischief 

 in the orchard and in the kitchen garden ; and this was a sufficient 

 pretext to place them in no other light than that of common outlaws, 

 to be punished with death whenever an opportunity should offer. 

 The little chaffinch, too, was to have no favour shown to him. He 

 was known to haunt the beds of early radishes ; and he would have 

 done a deal of damage there, forsooth, had not our gardener luckily 

 been allowed the use of a gun, with which he managed to kill, or to 

 drive away, every chaffinch, thrush, and blackbird, that arrived within 

 the precinct of his horticultural domain. 



But this promiscuous slaughter has ceased at last. Every bird, be 

 his qualities bad or good, is now welcome here , and still nothing 

 seems to go wrong, either in the orchard or in the garden. Neither 

 does the protection afforded to them appear to act to my disadvantage 

 in other quarters. The dovecot is most productive, notwithstanding 

 that a colony of starlings (those pests to all dovecots in the eyes of 

 farmers) exists within a stone's-throw of it. The pheasants are crow- 

 ing in every wood around ; nor do the hoarse croakings of the carrion 

 crows, or the frequent chatterings of the magpies, cause me any 

 apprehensions that there will be a deficiency in the usual supply of 

 game. The chief way to encourage birds is to forbid the use of fire- 

 arms in the place of their resort. I have done so here ; and to this 

 precaution I chiefly owe my unparalleled success. We have a tame 

 magpie in the stable yard. It is the same bird that is mentioned in 

 my paper on the stormcock. Being one of the tribe whose plumage 

 in the nest has the colours of that in after-life, you cannot decide 

 whether it is a male or a female. However, it has paired with a wild 

 one ; and although the wariness of the magpie is proverbial, never- 

 theless this strange bird will actually come and feed within a few yards 

 of us, without betraying any symptoms of fear. For these two years, 

 a Canada goose and gander, attracted hither by the quiet which this 

 place affords, have made their nest on a little island of alder trees. 

 Although the female has laid five eggs each year, still there has been 



