BERRIES AND BIRDS. 205 



of the dog-rose, the more globular berry of the fragrant 

 white-rose, and the hairy " hips " of the woolly-leaved 

 rose, which sparkle from the tangled masses of 

 briars, and hang pendant over the hedges and the 

 brooks, are all eagerly sought after by the birds. The 

 scarlet wax-like berries, like little turbans, that grow 

 singly on the yew trees, are the favourite food of the 

 Blackbird and the Jay, so long as they last ; whilst the 

 deeply-tinted holly-berries that cluster round the slender 

 twigs of that prickly-foliaged tree are eaten in large 

 numbers by Song Thushes, Fieldfares, and Wood Pigeons. 

 The small black berries of the privet and the ivy are 

 also favourites with the birds ; but as these fruits do not 

 ripen till the early spring, they generally form the repast 

 on which the earliest arrivals of Blackcaps regale them- 

 selves. Elder-berries are perhaps more greedily devoured 

 by birds than any other wild fruit. All through the 

 autumn, Starlings and Thrushes are continually eating 

 them, so that the trees are pretty bare of fruit before 

 Christmas. Even the grain and seed- loving Sparrow 

 occasionally picks a few of these luscious berries as he 

 sits in the branches. The berries of the juniper, which, 

 by the way, take two seasons to ripen, are not all em- 

 ployed for the purpose of flavouring gin, for the birds 

 levy a fair share of the spoil. Another fruit which is 

 popularly supposed to be the principal food of birds 

 during winter, though, in reality, it is not sought after 



