A CHANGE OF DIET 287 



between 1895 and 1914, thanks partly to protection, partly to 

 a wider interest in birds, partly to a series of mild winters. 

 But as numbers have increased feeding habits have a 

 little changed. More birds certainly now turn their atten- 

 tion to fruit as summer merges into autumn. Sparrows 

 and blackbirds will peck small holes in apples, probably 

 for the sake of the moisture. The blackbird always has 

 a tendency to fruit-eating. He is as devoted to straw- 

 berries and raspberries and currants as the greenfinch to 

 vegetable seed or the goldfinch to thistle or corn-flower 

 seed. But this apple-eating habit is perhaps on the 

 increase. 



As the rooks grow over numerous they become more grain- 

 eating than is their wont. Early in the summer a common 

 sight is the rooks' hunt of the daddy-longlegs emerging in 

 quantity from the grasses. They will hunt grubs of all sorts in 

 the cornfields, and eat a certain amount of seed-corn. But 

 when they are in overwhelming numbers they will now and 

 again, but more often on the Continent than in England, 

 deliberately fall to work on the corn, and even develop the 

 taste of the carrion crow for young birds. The ill effect of 

 excessive numbers is seen markedly in wood-pigeons, but 

 both species are essentially useful even in considerable num- 

 bers ; the rook for his destruction of larvae and the pigeon 

 for his happy taste in buttercup bulbs. The sparrow's taste 

 is permanently perverted in some places by excessive 

 numbers. In one particular village the sparrows have 

 acquired a taste for the flowers of the wistaria. In most 

 towns they fall upon the crocus petals in spring, and inter- 

 mittently snip off pieces of any sort of flower. But that 

 perhaps is rather an act of wanton damage, the sport of a 

 restless creature rather than a form of mawkish appetite. 



It is sometimes not easy to find the reason for some 

 U 



