CHAPTER XXIX. 



BIRDS IN THE ORCHARD.* 



By Frederic Smith, of Loddington, near Maidstone, Kent. 



The House Sparrow. 

 Few farmers have a good word for the 

 house sparrow. He pokes his nose into 

 everything but a trap, of which he is very 

 shy. He eats the buds of gooseberries, 

 currants, phnns, etc., and as soon as the 

 blossoms of cherries appear, he gives them 

 a peck to extract the little drop of honey 

 they contain, effectually di^sfoyiag the 

 embryo fruit. The blossoms of plums, 

 damsons, gooseberries, black and red 

 currants, the flowers in the garden, and 

 sometimes those of apples and pears 

 all share the same fate. I have not 

 room enough in this paper to describe 

 his bad deeds, but I think one of 

 his worst features is his fondness for 

 the lady-birds and their larva, the 

 niggers. I have watched the sparrows 

 repeatedly going systematically to work 

 over hop vines and fruit trees. I have 

 seen them begin at the bottom leaves of 

 a pole of hops and follow the winding of 

 the vine to the top, taking off every nigger 

 from under the leaves and then beginning 

 at the bottom of the next pole. I think 

 the sparrows are responsible for the de- 

 crease in number of the martins : they 

 allow the martins to nearly complete their 

 nest and then take possession of it. If 

 the nest was quite finished the sparrow 

 could not get in, so he quietly looks on 

 till he sees it will suit him, and then 

 promptly takes possession. 



The Blackbird and Thrush. 



Blackbirds have increased enormously 



of late years. Before gun licenses came 



into force they were kept down very much 



by people going round the roads and 



*This paper was read before the Maidstone 

 Farmers' Club, and, being of special excellence 

 as to observation, is reprinted here with Mr. 

 Frederic Smith's kind permission. 



shooting them in winter. Large num- 

 bers were killed in this way, but I think 

 no one wishes to see every village lad 

 running about with a gun, to the danger 

 of himself and the public. Of late years 

 we have had very mild winters, and that 

 has allowed them to increase very much; 

 also a much larger acreage of land is 

 strictly preserved for game now, and that 

 allows the birds to breed in safety. The 

 blackbird begins to eat fruit as soon as 

 it colours, and spares no variety, begin- 

 ning with early strawberries and going 

 on to gooseberries, currants, raspberries, 

 cherries, plums, damsons, apples, pears, 

 and figs. The damage they do is very 

 considerable, as they spoil as much as 

 they eat, or even more. I have for the 

 last seven or eight years trapped over 

 1,000 blackbirds and thrushes yearly. 

 This year, from the quantity left to breed, 

 I shall have to destroy at least 2,000 to 

 keep them at all within bounds — that is 

 on about 200 acres of fruit. Thrushes, I 

 think, are almost as bad as blackbirds. 

 They do not eat figs, and are not so 

 troublesome with the apples, but all other 

 fruit they are as partial to as the black- 

 bird. The thrush is partially migratory, 

 going south as the weather gets winterly. 

 If the North and Midlands have much 

 snow they come to our county, and see- 

 ing plenty of fruit trees they stay on and 

 add to our already over-crowded bird 

 population. 



The Bullfinch. 

 The bullfinch is the most destructive 

 bird the fruitgrower has to contend 

 against. They rove about in families of 

 five or six through the winter. A family 

 will come into a fruit tree and stay there 

 till they have destroyed all the buds— 

 both bloom and leaf buds. They usually 

 begin with Mayduke cherries in the early 



