JANUARY. 37 



Chapter III. January. 

 I. 



IT is wonderful what an amount of interest can be extracted 

 out of an acre of garden ground by merely watching 

 the animal life which occurs in it. The regular inhabitants 

 are legion, and the visitors are legion too. Certainly many 

 of the creatures we now find have been recently introduced 

 into these islands, but whether indigenous or imported 

 there they are in abundance. Bird life is very abundant, 

 in spite of the constant sport indulged in by the harmless 

 necessary cat. "Tom" is always on the alert and stalks 

 his game with great solemnity, but he seldom makes a 

 capture, though he succeeds in frightening away many a 

 desirable guest. The excited maternal cries of a thrush or 

 blackbird tell of his continual pursuit of the recently -fledged 

 young, but his sporting tendencies do not save the small 

 fruit, which serve to attract and feed a small army of these 

 birds. What diggers thrushes and blackbirds are ! They 

 burrow holes into the sides of the hotbeds to find the small 

 red worms which congregate there in numbers, and if any 

 manure be left imperfectly dug into the borders, they make 

 a hole in the ground like the scratching of a young rabbit. 

 What is the price we pay for having these birds in the 

 garden ? A heavy toll on the currants, gooseberries, rasp- 

 berries, and pears ; later on in the season the stripping of 

 the hollies and the rowan trees of their pretty fruit : the 

 invasion of the native bush by a dense undergrowth of 

 elder berries ; and total inability to grow cherries or straw- 

 berries except under nets. And in return, not only their 

 song, which though silent or nearly so now, is a charm for 

 great part of the year but wonderful immunity from slugs 

 and many an insect pest. 



Starlings and sparrows though abundant enough all 

 round us do not find good building room on my slate roof ; 

 but the latter birds do more than their due share of mischief 



