THE CROWS 93 



wrens were nearly as numerous. All the gorse seemed 

 full of them fora few days. Then by degrees they gradu- 

 ally spread abroad, and dispersed among the hedges. 



But in the following springs nothing of the kind oc- 

 curred. Chiffchaff and willow-wren came as usual, but 

 they did not arrive in a crowd at once. This may have 

 been owing to the flight going elsewhere, or possibly the 

 flock were diminished by failure to rear the young broods 

 in so drenching a season as 1879, which would explain the 

 difference observed next spring. There was no scarcity, 

 but there was a lack of the bustle and excitement and flood 

 of song that accompanied their advent two years before. 



Upon a piece of waste land at the corner of the furze 

 a very large cinder and dust heap was made by carting 

 refuse there from the neighbouring suburb. During the 

 sharp and continued frosts of the winter this dust-heap 

 was the resort of almost every species of bird sparrows, 

 starlings, greenfinches, and rooks searching for any stray 

 morsels of food. Some birdcatchers soon noticed this 

 concourse, and spread their nets among the adjacent 

 rushes, but fortunately with little success. 



I say fortunately, not because I fear the extinction of 

 small birds, but because of the miserable fate that awaits 

 the captive. Far better for the frightened little creature 

 to have its neck at once twisted and to die than to 

 languish in cages hardly large enough for it to turn in be- 

 hind the dirty panes of the windows in the Seven Dials. 



The happy greenfinch I use the term of forethought, 

 for the greenfinch seems one of the very happiest of birds 

 in the hedges accustomed during all its brief existence 

 to wander in company with friends from bush to bush, 

 and tree to tree, must literally pine its heart out. Or it 

 may be streaked with bright paint and passed on some 

 unwary person for a Java sparrow or a " blood-heart." 



