OF HARTING. 267 



so persevering have been their attentions to the fruit 

 trees, that the most grotesque scarecrows in the 

 orchards and gardens have been laughed to scorn by 

 them, as indeed they richly deserved to be ; and with 

 reference to the wages to which these birds may con- 

 sider themselves entitled for useful labour performed 

 by them at other seasons, they have most unscrupu- 

 lously taken the law into their own hands. I know of 

 many a cherry tree which last spring blossomed and 

 fruited for these pilferers alone, I have seen many a 

 currant tree, many a gooseberry bush, that at one 

 time gave promise of a luxuriant crop, totally deprived 

 of the power of keeping that promise, as far as the 

 owner was concerned, by these wary depredators. 

 It is impossible to walk a field of turnips, or beat a 

 hedgerow, or a patch of fern in the park, without 

 putting up quite a 'bouquet' of them at frequent in- 

 tervals, in short I never before knew them to be 

 swarming as they are now, and I never before saw so 

 many of their eggs and such a variety among them as I 

 did during their last nesting season. Many a mile have 

 I walked for nests and eggs, which I had been urgently 

 requested to believe were neither blackbird's nor 

 thrush's, tho' something like both, and which I once or 

 twice faintly hoped might prove to be the ring ouzel's ; 

 but which, after all, were only varieties of those of the 

 former birds." We have only to add that albino and 

 pied specimens of the blackbird, have not very un- 

 commonly been met with here ; and a beautiful dove- 

 coloured variety of the thrush, which was shot on the 

 estate, is still preserved somewhere in one of the villages. 

 The Redwing (Turdus iliacus) and the Fieldfare 

 (Turdus pilaris) are our guests, in numbers varying 

 with the mildness or severity of the season, from 

 about the middle of autumn till the following spring. 



The pretty little Hedge Spa.rro\v(Accentormoditlaris) 

 is never absent, and often favours us with its cheerful 

 song, even when the gardens and fields have " put on 



