58 IN A CHESHIRE GARDEN 



In February, 1893, a nen hawfinch was 

 shown me. It had just been shot in the 

 village, and in 1894 I heard of a nest in the 

 gardens at Lymm Hall, rather more than two 

 miles away. 



My wife told me one morning in October, 

 1910, that she had seen on a tree near her 

 window a thick-set bird with a big head and 

 short tail and neck, whose colour she de- 

 scribed as some shades of brown. Two or 

 three little birds appeared to be mobbing it, 

 and it kept pecking at them like a parrot. 

 She only saw it for a minute or two, before 

 it flew away round the corner of the house. 

 It altogether sounds as though it might have 

 been a hawfinch. 



House-sparrows abound here, and are 

 interesting and amusing to the unprejudiced 

 looker-on who doesn't suffer from their 

 depredations. There is no denying that 

 sparrows are vulgar, and bold and pushing, 

 or that they are tiresomely persevering in the 

 mischief that they do. They are coarsely 

 built and have no song, while their monoto- 

 nous chirp is distracting, but they have that 

 which for the race of life stands them in more 

 stead .than either beauty or musical talent; 

 they have courage and intelligence, a won- 

 derful power of adapting themselves to 

 circumstances and a sound healthy constitu- 

 tion, with a digestion that an ostrich might 

 envy. 



