292 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



The meadow-land in the Vale abounds in the tall, 

 dense thorn fences in which these birds like to build, 

 and in the spring so many of these immigrant bull- 

 finches were tempted to stay, that four times the 

 usual number of nests were found near one village, 

 with the bird - population of which the writer has 

 long had an intimate acquaintance. In one garden 

 in the Vale, more than thirty kinds of birds build 

 annually, mainly because some pains are taken to 

 secure them a variety of nesting-places. Dead limbs 

 are not sawn from the apple trees in the orchard, 

 and in them the nuthatches chisel out their homes. 

 Nettles are left to grow under the rooks' trees, and 

 the whitethroats like these almost as well as the wild- 

 rose bushes for their delicate nests. Branches that 

 have been pruned from an overhanging elder are left 

 upon the ground near the paths for the blackcaps 

 to nest in when the wild hemlock has grown up 

 through them, and the heavy masses of ivy left cling- 

 ing round elm, birch and fir, give shelter to wrens 

 and greenfinches, blackbirds and wood pigeons, and 

 later, to the turtle-doves. But many of those who 

 wish to entice the birds to build would hardly care 

 to obtain this result by the simple but effective plan 

 of letting things alone. A little ingenuity will secure 

 the same objects, without incurring the reproach of 

 ' untidiness/ Artificial nesting - places can easily be 



