68 BIRDS, CONSIDERED WITH 



Amphibious Animals, considered with reference to Horticulture. 



The frog, Rana temporaria, L., and the toad, Bufo vulgaris, Flem., 

 are found useful in gardens, because they live upon worms, snails, 

 slugs, and terrestrial insects. The toad being less active than the frog, 

 and being capable of living a longer period without food, is better 

 adapted for being shut up in frames, or kept in stoves. Both prefer a 

 damp and shady situation ; and where they are intended to breed, 

 they should have access to a shallow pond, or shady ditch. The ova 

 of the frog is deposited in clusters in ditches and shallow ponds, 

 about the middle of March; and the young, or tadpoles, are hatched 

 a month or five weeks afterwards, according to the season : by the 

 18th of June they are nearly full-sized, and begin to acquire their 

 fore feet; towards the end of that month, or the beginning of the next, 

 the young frogs come on land, but the tail is still preserved for a 

 short time afterwards. The common toad is a few days later in 

 spawning than the frog. Its ova are deposited in long necklace-like 

 chains in shallow water in shady ponds or ditches. There is one 

 species, B. Calamita, Laurent, the Natter-Jack, which inhabits dry 

 localities, and is a much more active animal than the toad, but much 

 less common. 



Birds, considered with reference to Horticulture. 



Birds are, upon the whole, much more beneficial than injurious to 

 gardens ; and being also larger animals and more familiar to every 

 person living in the country than insects, we shall only briefly 

 notice the commoner kinds. 



To give an idea of their usefulness to the horticulturist, it may be 

 well to advert to the vigilance and voraciousness of the white or barn- 

 owl (Strix flammea, L.), which feeds principally upon mice, snails, and 

 slugs, and occasionally picks up rats, &c. Mr. Waterton points out, in 

 his l Essays on Natural History,' that when it has young it will bring a 

 mouse to its nest about every fifteen minutes. But in order to have 

 a proper idea of the number of mice which this bird destroys, we 

 must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place 

 of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons 

 of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the retreat of the 

 owl on the old gateway at Walton Hall was cleaned out, there had 

 been a deposit of about a bushel of pellets. All the owls, hawks, 

 ravens, crows, magpies, jays, and rooks are equally useful in their 

 respective spheres, while the thrushes, blackbirds, &c., repay the 

 value of the fruit they destroy by the great multitude of small worms 

 and slugs they consume. The hedge-sparrow is about as useful in 

 gardens as the house-sparrow is destructive ; while the martins, 

 swallows, wrens, and fly-catchers live wholly upon insects. 



In destroying or reducing the number of birds, those that are wholly 

 or chiefly insect-eaters must be spared, while such as bullfinches, chaf- 

 finches, and sparrows, that devour buds and seeds, should be thinned. 



