A Favourite Garden. 119 



and martins. The garden is not more than two 

 or three acres in extent, including the little orchard 

 which adjoins it ; but by planting great numbers 

 of thick bushes and coniferous trees, and by 

 placing flower-pots, old wooden boxes, and other 

 such odds and ends, in the forks of the branches 

 at a considerable height from the ground, he has 

 inspired them with perfect confidence in his good- 

 will and ' philornithic ' intentions. The fact that 

 a pair of Missel- thrushes reared their young here 

 only a few feet from the ground, and close to 

 a stable and a much-frequented walk, shows that 

 even birds of wild habits of life may be brought 

 to repose trust in man by attention to their wants 

 and wishes. The Blackcap, which almost always 

 nests in woods, had here found it possible to take 

 up its quarters close to the fruit it loves ; and of 

 all the commoner kinds the nests were legion. 

 Three Greenfinches built in the same tree one 

 over another, the nests being little more than a 

 foot apart ; a Wren had so closely fitted a little 

 box with the usual materials of its nest, that the 

 door corresponded with the only opening in the 

 box ; a Robin had found an ample basis of 



