60 IN A CHESHIRE GARDEN 



they got quite used to it. It was the same 

 with many other contrivances that I tried, 

 they answered their purpose for a time, it 

 may be altogether as far as most went, but 

 in every case sooner or later some sparrows 

 learnt to overcome every difficulty, and it 

 struck me that each successive year they 

 seemed to do so more easily, as though they 

 turned the experience of one year to good 

 account in the next. 



In 1899 I made an apparatus like a wind- 

 mill, with four arms, and food in a kind of 

 little box at the end of each. The arms, of 

 course, went down directly a bird touched 

 them. This for a long time was effectual, 

 and I had begun to flatter myself that I had 

 solved the problem, but during a hard frost 

 some one or two sparrows overcame their 

 fears and managed to get the fat, and when 

 once they saw it might be done with safety 

 many others learnt the trick. I then compli- 

 cated the idea into a wheel, with eight arms, 

 and food only at the extreme point of each. 

 This answered so far that no sparrow seemed 

 able to get at the fat from the revolving arm 

 itself as they hung on to it (an easy feat for 

 the tits), but they used to hover opposite the 

 ends of the arms and pick out the food. 

 (Robins did this also.) Independently of 

 its effect in discouraging the sparrows, the 

 wheel afforded much amusement by the antics 

 it imposed upon the tits as they went round 

 and up and down on the arms. 



