2 BRITISH BIRDS 



A very high authority might be quoted in support of 

 the contention that "every kind (nature) of birds is tamed 

 and hath been tamed of mankind" but it is unnecessary 

 to pursue that part of the subject any further, though 

 the temptation to do so is undoubtedly very great. It 

 must, however, be mentioned that the very persons who 

 cry out the loudest about what they are pleased to term 

 the "iniquity of making winged prisoners," are themselves 

 densely ignorant upon the subject concerning which they 

 would presume to dictate to others. For example, in a 

 recent pamphlet issued by one of the most noisy of the 

 clique, it is asserted that the Bullfinch lives almost entirely, 

 if not quite, upon insects and is consequently the friend 

 and not the foe of the horticulturist, who is undoubtedly 

 persecuting the poor bird to the verge of extermination. 



Every tyro in Natural History is perfectly aware 

 that the Bullfinch does not eat insects and does eat 

 the buds of trees (though his doing so by no means 

 inflicts the harm imagined) ; but he also eats a vast 

 quantity of seeds of many kinds of noxious weeds, and 

 on that account alone is of benefit to the farmer and 

 gardener. The writer has gone pretty deeply into this 

 matter of the Bullfinch and buds, and can say this, that 

 so far from doing harm to the trees he honours by 

 his attentions, the bird does good. Say he consumes 120 

 buds a day, and repeated observations of tame birds show 

 that is about the average, what would that amount to 

 in the year ? 43,800. 



The total may startle at first sight. But the gardener 

 prunes his trees ! The writer knows one large orchard 

 from which no less than three thousand cartloads of 

 branches were removed by the owner in one year ! There 

 were a few buds destroyed there, were there not? With 

 between 200 and 300 branches to a load, say 250 as an 

 average, and a thousand buds on each branch (for the 

 writer counted those on a medium-sized bough, and 

 found that they numbered exactly 1003), we at once get 

 the surprising total of seven hundred and fifty million buds 

 (750,000,000) removed voluntarily by the proprietor of the 

 orchard for the good of his trees. 



