FESTS 97 



impossibility of securing any crop from them. This, 

 no doubt, is partially due to a general increase in the 

 number of birds within recent years, especially of 

 bullfinches, but it is also due to some of these birds 

 having altered their habits, and learnt to attack things 

 which they formerly left untouched. It is noticeable 

 that the damage done is very different in different 

 localities, even when there is no difference in the 

 numbers of birds present. In view of these facts, it 

 seems probable that the depredations of birds are 

 likely to increase still further, and to be extended to 

 kinds of fruits which are at present immune. At the 

 same time, we must not forget the good done in our 

 plantations by some birds : the blue, cole and long- 

 tail tits do much good by eating various destructive 

 insects and their eggs. Now and then the two former 

 peck the base of ripening pears, but they may be pre- 

 vented from doing so by having patches of sunflowers 

 here and there, planted so as to seed about the time 

 the fruit is ripening. Another means of protecting 

 choice pears is to slip a small conical cardboard cap 

 over the base. 



Of the birds which are most destructive to ripe 

 fruit, the starling, sparrow, blackbird, jay, blackcap 

 and thrush are the most prominent, and, beyond 

 scaring them away in the case of rapidly ripening 

 fruit, such as cherries, little can be done by way of 

 prevention in large plantations. In gardens, of course, 

 netting, or twisting thread round bushes, may be 

 practised. 



Of those which destroy the buds in winter, the 

 bullfinch and sparrow are by far the worst. Some 

 7 



