2i 4 EVERSLEY GARDENS 



possession of a Damson tree which was thickly 

 set with fruit buds. It was while I was dress- 

 ing, and the gardener had gone home for his 

 breakfast ; and though I shouted and clapped 

 my hands from the window, the plump little 

 marauder remained perfectly calm. So all that 

 I could do was to watch her through my field- 

 glasses. But for the sense of loss of all my 

 damsons, it was interesting to see her metho- 

 dical work. She started from the tip of a 

 branch, and picked out every bud the whole 

 way down it. Then she took the next and 

 by the time I got down to the tree an hour 

 later, not more than a dozen flower buds were 

 left untouched. My neighbour the wheel- 

 wright, who is a keen and observant naturalist, 

 was lamenting only last week that the usual 

 pair of bullfinches had arrived in his garden, 

 and had already stripped every one of his 

 gooseberry bushes. And, as they generally 

 come to my garden next, I am going to try 

 whether Bordeaux mixture, or quassia and 

 paraffin, sprayed over the trees, will save my 

 unlucky fruit buds this year. The cock-bird, 



