Lesser Redpolls. 21 



beautifully - kept turf, almost every variety of 

 youthful plumage may be seen in June or July, 

 from the sombrest black to the brightest pearl- 

 gray. Last summer, I one day spent a long time 

 here watching the efforts of a parent to induce a 

 young bird to leave its perch and join the others 

 on the turf : the nest must have been placed 

 somewhat high up among the creepers, and the 

 young bird, on leaving it, had ventured no further 

 than a little stone statue above my head. The 

 mother flew repeatedly to the young one, hovered 

 before it, chattered and encouraged it in every 

 possible way ; but it was a long time before she 

 prevailed. 



Let us now return towards the city, looking 

 into the Parks on our way. The Curators of the 

 Parks, not less generous to the birds than to man- 

 kind, have provided vast stores of food for the 

 former, in the numbers of birches and conifers 

 which flourish under their care. They, or their 

 predecessors who stocked the plantations, seem to 

 have had the particular object of attracting those 

 delightful little north-country birds the Lesser 

 Redpolls, for they have planted every kind of tree 



