THE JAY 165 



to the bender so that the trap will not be struck. When the birds 

 take the bait freely, peg some down inside the bender and remove 

 the string preventing the basket falling. The bird or birds step 

 on the bender, and the trap falls and secures it uninjured. 



The blackbird is very useful in pleasure grounds, delighting every 

 one with its clarisonous song; but in the fruit garden, plantation 

 and orchard it is the blackest of ripening or ripe fruit pilferers, slyly 

 appropriating strawberries, currants, cherries, gooseberries, rasp- 

 berries, apples, pears, and plums, frequently commencing the 

 attack when the fruit gives the first indication of ripening, or even 

 trying it whilst green. In some localities, where there are extensive 

 shrubberies, copses, and woods, particularly when game is strictly 

 preserved, in the vicinity, it is impossible to grow fruit profitably 

 without destroying the blackbirds, for unmolested they will, in 

 many cases, devour or spoil the entire crop, particularly of soft 

 fruits. Indeed, from the time the first strawberries or bush fruits 

 ripen until autumn the blackbird lives upon fruit, and moves from 

 place to place, and whilst as many as 70 or 80 of these birds along 

 with a few thrushes may be shot by four expert shooters in a morn- 

 ing, and totalling 2,000 in a year on a large fruit plantation, the 

 blackbirds still come every year without any notable diminution. 

 Shooting and trapping is the only remedy, combined with the de- 

 struction of all the eggs or young blackbirds in their nests in hedge- 

 rows or wherever the game-preserver will admit of access ; there 

 being no question of an undue increase of fruit-devouring birds 

 being a result of the close preservation of game on the one hand, 

 and of the increase and spread of fruit cultivation on the other hand. 



In gardens and on allotments or small fruit plantations, recourse 

 must be had to netting out the blackbirds as before detailed under 

 thrush. Tanned netting, however, is costly, entailing an outlay of 

 10 per acre, which, with the extra labour involved, is a serious 

 drawback in profitable fruit production. Sometimes it is necessary 

 to employ netting over the ventilators in fruit houses, particularly 

 cherry and orchard houses, and in some instances tomato houses, 

 as from acquiring a taste of tomatoes on walls and in the open ground 

 they enter glass structures, destroying much fruit by pecking as 

 well as by devouring a considerable quantity. This taste for 

 tomato fruit or berry appears to have been recently acquired, and 

 passes through one generation to another, particularly in dry hot 

 seasons. A few traps, properly baited and set on the ground under 

 the plants outdoors, make an end of the pilferers. 



JAY. Despite bird millinery, jays still trouble the game-pre- 

 server on account of their fondness of game-bird eggs, yet is of 

 some service, for, ever on the watch, gives notice of intruders in 

 coverts by chattering and scolding, thus indicating that something 

 unusual is going on. The jay also helps the farmer by destroying 

 the eggs of the wood-pigeon, and is useful to the fruit-grower b5 



