278 THE CHAFFINCH. 



the country. They were slain without pity, or were 

 chased away by every intruding gunner who took 

 pleasure in pursuing them ; and whose heart never 

 throbbed at the sight of the poor bleeding bird which 

 lay dead at his feet. 



Thus the melody of the vernal thrush, and the 

 plaintive notes of the ring-dove, scarcely ever an- 

 nounced to us the arrival of that interesting time of 

 the year when Nature awakes from her long and 

 dreary sleep of winter. These sweet choristers of 

 the grove were said to do mischief in the orchard, 

 and in the kitchen garden ; and this was a sufficient 

 pretext to place them in no other light than that of 

 common outlaws, to be punished with death when- 

 ever an opportunity should offer. 



The little chaffinch, too, was to have no favour 

 shown to him. He was known to haunt the beds of 

 early radishes ; and he would have done a deal of 

 damage there, forsooth, had not our gardener luckily 

 been allowed the use of a gun, with which he 

 managed to kill, or to drive away, every chaffinch, 

 thrush, and blackbird, that arrived within the pre- 

 cinct of his horticultural domain. 



But this promiscuous slaughter has ceased at last. 

 Every bird, be his qualities bad or good, is now 

 welcome here ; and still nothing seems to go wrong, 

 either in the orchard, or in the garden. Neither 

 does the protection afforded to them appear to act 

 to my disadvantage in other quarters. The dovecot 

 is most productive, notwithstanding that a colony of 

 starlings (those pests to all dovecots in the eyes of 

 farmers) exists within a stone's throw of it The 



