218 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



fact, county after county has taken up the cause of 

 this pretty and useful little bird, and in a small map of 

 the country lying before me, in which the counties 

 where the goldfinch receives protection throughout 

 the year are coloured red, I find that -on more than 

 three-fourths of the entire area of England and Wales 

 the bird is now safeguarded. As a result it is increasing 

 all over the country, but it will be many years before 

 we have it in its former numbers. How abundant it 

 was about eighty years ago, before its long decline 

 began, may be gathered from the following passage 

 in Cobbett's Rural Rides describing his journey from 

 Highworth to Malmesbury in Wiltshire. 



" Between Somerford and Ocksey, I saw, on the side 

 of the road, more goldfinches than I had ever seen 

 together ; I think fifty times as many as I had ever seen 

 at one time in my life. The favourite food of the 

 goldfinch is the seed of the thistle. The seed is just 

 now dead ripe. The thistles all cut and carried away 

 from the fields by the harvest ; but they grow along- 

 side the roads, and in this place in great quantities. 

 So that the goldfinches were got here in flocks, and, as 

 they continued to fly before me for nearly half a mile 

 and still sticking to the roads and brakes I do believe 

 I had, at last, a flock of 10,000 flying before me." 



Cobbett rightly says that the seed of the thistle is 

 the favourite food of the bird ; and once upon a time 

 an ornithologist made the statement that the improved 

 methods of agriculture in England had killed the 

 thistle, thus depriving the goldfinch of its natural food, 



