DESTRUCTIVE TO GARDENS. 161 



correct. It may confer this benefit accidentally, 

 but not with intention. The mischief effected by 

 bull-finches is greater than commonly imagined, 

 and the ground beneath the bush or tree, on which 

 they have been feeding, is commonly strewed with 

 the shattered buds, the rejectments of their banquet ; 

 and we are thus deprived of a large portion of our 

 best fruits by this assiduous pillager, this " pick-a- 

 bud," as the gardeners call it, without any redeem- 

 ing virtues to compensate our loss. A snowy, se- 

 vere winter makes great havoc with this bird. It 

 feeds much in this season upon the fruit of the dog- 

 rose, "hips," as we call them. When they are 

 gone, it seems to pine for food, and is starved, or 

 perhaps frozen on its roost, as few are observed to 

 survive a long inclement winter. But it is not the 

 buds of our fruit-bearing trees only that these de- 

 structive birds seek out ; yet in all instances I think 

 it will be observed that such buds as produce leaves 

 only are rejected, and those which contain the em- 

 bryo of the future blossom selected : by this proce- 

 dure, though the tree is prevented from producing 

 fruit, yet the foliage is expanded as usual ; but had 

 the leaves, the lungs of the plant, been indiscrimi- 

 nately consumed, the tree would probably have 

 died, or its summer growth been materially injured : 

 we may thus lose our fruit this year, yet the tree 

 survives, and hope lives, too, that we may be more 

 fortunate the next. The Tartarian honey-suckle 



M 



