142 A HISTORY OF 



Willoughby has divided all the smaller birds into those that have 

 slender bills, and those that have short and thick bills. Those with 

 slender bills, chiefly live upon insects ; those with short, strong bills, 

 live mostly upon fruits and grain. Among slender-billed birds, he 

 enumerates the thrush, the blackbird, the fieldfare, the starling, the 

 lark, the titmouse, and the water-wagtail, the nightingale, the redstart, 

 the robin-red-breast, the beccafigo, the stone chatter, the whinchat, the 

 goldfinch, the white-throat, the hedge-sparrow, the pettichaps, the 

 golden-crowned wren, the wren, the humming-bird, and several other 

 small birds of the sparrow kind, unknown in this part of the world. 



All these, as was said, live for the most part upon insects ; and are 

 consequently of particular benefit to man. By these are his grounds 

 cleared of the pernicious swarms of vermin that devour the budding 

 leaves and flowers ; and that even attack the root itself, before evei 

 the vegetable can come to maturity. These seek for, and destroy 

 the eggs of insects that would otherwise propagate in numbers beyond 

 the arts of man to extirpate : they know better than man where to seek 

 for them ; and thus at once satisfy their own appetites, and rendei 

 him the most essential services. 



But this is not the only merit of this tribe : in it we have the sweet 

 est songsters of the grove ; their notes are softer, and their manner 

 more musically soothing than those of hard-billed birds. The foremost 

 in musical fame, are, the nightingale, the thrush, the blackbird, the 

 lark, the red-breast, the black-cap, and the wren. 



Birds of the sparrow kind, with thick and short bills, are the gros- 

 beak, the greenfinch, the bullfinch, the crossbill, the house-sparrow 

 the chaffinch, the brambling, the goldfinch, the linnet, the siskin, the 

 bunting, the yellow-hammer, the ortolan, the wheat-ear, and several 

 other foreign birds, of which we know rather the names than the his- 

 tory. These chiefly feed upon fruits, grain, and corn. They are 

 often troublesome to man, as they are a numerous tribe : the harvest 

 often suffers from their depredations ; and while they are driven off from 

 one end of the field, they fly round, and come in at the other. But 

 these also have their uses: they are frequently the distributors of seeds 

 into different districts : those grains which they swallow, are some- 

 times not wholly digested ; and these, laid upon a soil congenial to 

 them, embellish the face of Nature with that agreeable variety, which 

 art but vainly attempts to imitate. The mistletoe plant, which we 

 often see growing on the tops of elm and other trees, has, been thought 

 to be propagated in this manner ; yet, as it is often seen growing on 

 the under side of the branch, and sometimes on a perpendicular shoot, 

 t seems extraordinary how a seed could be deposited in that situa- 

 tion. However this, be, there are many plants propagated from the 

 depositions of birds ; and some seeds are thought to thrive the bet- 

 ter for first having undergone a kind of maceration in the stomach of 

 the little animal, before it is voided on the ground. 



There are some agreeable songsters in this tribe also ; and those 

 who like a loud piercing pipe, endued with great variety and perse 

 verance, will be pleased most with their singing. The songsters of 

 this class are the Canary-bird, tne linnet, the chaffinch, the goldfinch, 

 the greenfinch, the bullfinch, the brambling, the sisken, and the yel- 

 low-hammer. The note of these is not so generally pleasing as that 



