68 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



fears about this brood of young Wagtails ; they are too 

 precocious ; a truant weasel or a crafty Crow would soon 

 murder the lot. The old birds seem to have misgivings 

 too, and are constantly manifesting uneasiness over the 

 daring movements of their giddy, inexperienced young 

 ones. 



In the Corn. 



The corn is now ripening fast. Each day the golden 

 tints get darker, a sure sign that the crop is almost 

 ready for the reapers. The farmers' boys are busy from 

 sunrise to sunset scaring the birds from the grain, and 

 their shouts and the noise of their clappers may be 

 heard far and wide. Birds, especially in the neighbour- 

 hood of towns and large villages, commit serious depre- 

 dations on the corn. The worst of these delinquents is 

 the House Sparrow ; not that, individually, he eats any 

 more than the other birds, but because he comes in such 

 vast numbers. For a breadth of several yards round 

 each field, almost every ear of corn shows traces of these 

 little spoilers' visits. My walk round the narrow path, 

 between the hedges and the corn, which I took this 

 morning as usual, led to my discovering that the Tree 

 Pipit feeds greedily on grain. I watched them busily at 

 work shelling out the corn, and flushed them repeatedly 

 from amongst the straw. The Sparrows in compact 

 flocks rose from the grain as I approached them, and 



