THE SURPLUS OF SUMMER 239 



understand that there was no longer room for them 

 about the homestead, and so they have moved on. 

 But whither? Has not every farmyard its pair of 

 pied wagtails that has similarly reared and banished 

 a brood, if not two. We cannot think with equan- 

 imity of the tremendous weeding-out that must fall 

 upon these exquisite and useful birds. 



The tiny down-lined cup in the elm tree has scat- 

 tered its little goldfinches into the thistle-field, where 

 they are joined by other broods, till there is quite an 

 army fluttering like butterflies among the purple 

 blooms and blowzy ripe heads. Here, too, are the 

 red linnets and cole-tits almost beyond counting, 

 though we knew but one pair of the latter in spring. 

 Greenfinches and chaffinches are at times seen with 

 the sparrows in thousands ravaging the standing 

 corn, sometimes mobbing a hawk and sometimes 

 paying penalty. Again it is the actual young sur- 

 plus that is cut down. Nature takes the line of 

 least resistance, and among the easily caught, easily 

 plucked, and tender to eat birds of the year, the 

 hawks, and even the crows, spend the fat time of late 

 summer and autumn. The young greenfinch is pro- 

 vided by nature as a means of teaching the young 

 hawk its business. And the young partridge, too, 

 we think, as we come upon a circle of brown feathers 

 in a hollow at the top of a bank, that the hawk often 

 chooses for plucking his kill. But a moment's examina- 

 tion dissipates our fear. It is written that dog shall 

 not eat dog, but here undoubtedly a hawk has struck 

 down a hawk and eaten it to the last scrap. The 

 circle, measuring scarcely a foot across, is full of the 

 feathers of a young kestrel, the flight-feathers with 



