FEBRUARY. 31 



are useful, too, such as the wild rose, the holly, and 

 the yew ; and the rowan tree and elder spread for a 

 short time in autumn a generous banquet, which the 

 birds waste riotously. But the clustered blackberries 

 of the bramble form almost the sole food of hosts of 

 soft-billed birds in later autumn, while the haws of 

 the hawthorn keep life in their bodies during the 

 wintriest months. 



THE SANCTUARY OF IVY. 



But the ivy is the most generally useful of all 

 British plants to wild life. Not only does it provide 

 food at a critical time in early spring, but it gives the 

 best of shelter all the year round, and in late autumn 

 is almost the sole resource of bees and butterflies and 

 moths. There is probably not a single ivied tree in 

 the whole of the British Isles from which, if you 

 threw a stone into it at dusk, more than one bird 

 would not be startled ; and into one thick ivy clump 

 on a hedgerow tree you may sometimes watch green- 

 finches and yellow-hammers, starlings, blackbirds, 

 tree-sparrows, and bullfinches, all going to roost 

 together. And if you wait a little, perhaps, a barn 

 owl, who always plays Cox to the Box of birddom in 

 general, may drift out of the same ivy-clump, like a 

 large white feather-fan, floating into the gathering 

 night. 



NESTING-TIME DRAWS NEAR. 



It is the very proper custom now to taboo birds'- 

 nesting as a pastime for boys though some of their 

 " scientific " seniors are not above offering long prices 



