USE OF SMALL BIRDS. 249 



them, by several children. This continued for several 

 days, when an unlucky accident put an end to it. The 

 cage had been again set on the outside of the window, 

 and was unfortunately left exposed to a sudden and 

 heavy fall of rain : the consequence was, that the whole 

 of the young were drowned in the nest. The poor pa- 

 rents, who had so boldly and indefatigably performed 

 their duty, continued hovering round the house, and 

 looking wistfully in at the window, for several days, and 

 then disappeared*. 



Before we take leave of this tribe of small birds, we- 

 would say a word or two respecting the benefit or inju- 

 ries imputed to them. That they are occasionally mis- 

 chievous, cannot be denied ; though it is but fair to add, 

 that they also, like the Rooks before mentioned, repay 

 us by a considerable balance of good. That the Bull- 

 finch feeds on the buds and seeds of trees, there can bo 

 no doubt ; and that the Chaffinch, though by many con- 

 sidered as a pure feeder on insects, does the same, parti- 

 cularly in early Spring, when he inflicts ruinous injury 

 on the sprouting crops of several plants, is equally true- 

 Sparrows, too, burrow in our stacks, and consume a cer- 

 tain quantity of corn, not, indeed, in the same serious 

 quantities that another bird does, called the Snow- 

 Bunting : these birds, in hard Winters, come from the 

 north in prodigious flocks, and, where they take up their 

 quarters, become quite a nuisance, not so much by 

 what they consume, as by what they destroy; which 

 they do thus: in search of grain, they frequent the 

 stack, and then seizing the end of a straw, deliberately 

 draw it out. To such a degree has this been done by 

 them, that the base of a rick has been found entirely 

 surrounded by the straw, one end resting on the ground, 

 the other against the stack, as it slid down from the top, 

 and as regularly placed as if by hand ; and so completely 

 was the thatching pulled off, that it was found necessary 

 to remove the corn. 



* Edin. Phil. Jour. 



