THE LILAC-TREE AND BIRDS. 405 



The first thing, therefore, that the bird-catcher does is to cleanse 

 the captive's feet and toes by rubbing them gently between his 

 finger and thumb with fine sand, and afterwards washing them 

 with water ; an operation no sooner performed and the bird restored 

 to its cage, than it evinces its satisfaction at being relieved from 

 its state of intolerable discomfort in many little ways that cannot 

 well escape the notice of even the most unobservant. We have 

 known a newly captured chaffinch, placed in a cage directly on 

 being taken off the limed twig, and inadvertently left uncared for 

 till the evening, peck its toes until red flesh appeared, in his 

 attempts to rid them of the bird-lime attached to them. But 

 whether the song-bird's dislike to the lilac when in flower be 

 owing to its perfume or to the disagreeably glutinous exudations 

 of its bark in early summer, or to both combined, it is simply the 

 fact that such an aversion exists ; and Allan Cunningham's objection 

 to the lilac in this connection is perfectly well founded. And even 

 if this particular objection had not been well founded, it would 

 have been better, we think, if Burns had selected some one or other 

 of our native flowering shrubs, such as the hawthorn, for example, 

 rather than a comparatively rare exotic like the lilac rare now, 

 and rarer still a hundred years ago. If those who give any heed 

 at all to these matters will only consider the question, they will be 

 ready, we think, to confess that they never yet knew an instance of 

 a bird's nest in a lilac tree. About our own place here, where the 

 lilac grows to a large size, and flowers splendidly, we ourselves have 

 never known or heard of such a thing. Within the shelter of 

 every other tree and shrub of any consequence about the place, 

 we have known our song-bird friends to build at some time 

 or other never once in the lilac, nor, it may be added, in the 

 fuchsia, which in the warm shelter of this genial spot grows to 

 the dimensions of a tree, all the year round too, without the 

 slightest petting or special protection of any kind, as hardy and 



