78 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



cultivated fruit, and in that way is a terrible hin- 

 drance to the gardener. 



As a lover of birds from childhood, and now, 

 at an advanced age, credited by some of my friends 

 with having a severe attack of " birds on the brain," 

 I would gladly exonerate my favourites from all 

 blame. But the conclusion at which I have arrived, 

 and which experience tells me is the true one, is, 

 that some members of the finch tribe do a great 

 amount of mischief in a garden. The bullfinch, 

 in spite of his ruddy breast and his dainty flute-like 

 song, is one of the gardener's special enemies. He 

 gets shot down without mercy, and is left to rot 

 beneath the trees which he has plundered of their 

 buds. 



The largest and rarest of the finch tribe is the 

 pine bullfinch a bird rare even in the pine-woods 

 of Scotland, where it is supposed to breed, though 

 about this I am not prepared to give an opinion. 

 In plumage it rather resembles the crossbill. Being 

 a Northern bird, it is probably migratory. All our 

 common birds are more or less so, according to 

 weather-changes. Vast numbers come to us from 

 the Continent, and return again if they escape the 



