72 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



with the wing and tail feathers fully grown, others 

 only just able to fly from the tree and back again. 

 Much patient watching and a quick shot are needed 

 to secure a pair of old hawfinches in full breeding 

 plumage, but they fetch a price quite sufficient to 

 encourage the attempt. 



Although numbers of young birds are shot and 

 buried in almost every garden where peas are grown, 

 not half-a-dozen pairs of the old birds come into the 

 hands of the bird-preservers in the course of the 

 year. Their keen light-grey eyes glance in all direc- 

 tions, no matter where they may be. I have often 

 watched them in the winter months before the 

 mania arose for destroying the fine old trees that 

 lined the sides of some of our highways. There, 

 amongst the crab - trees, bullaces, pickets, wild 

 plums, and sloes, I have perhaps chanced upon 

 a pair of hawfinches in the course of a five-mile 

 walk; but then you can only see one side of the 

 hedge as you go along. 



My pleasure in watching them at work on the 

 stones of the plums, or the pips of crab - apples 

 was brief: in spite of the care I took not to startle 

 them, they would suddenly fling themselves on to 



