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others have been too precipitate in their application, not 

 discriminating between mischievous and desirable species, 

 as if all small song-birds lived on the same food. Now 

 there is all the difference possible to the farmer and 

 gardener between a flock of goldfinches and a flock of 

 sparrows. Twenty sparrows will eat as much corn as 

 a fine turkey, yet nothing is commoner than to see the 

 hedges round a field of standing corn swarming with 

 hundreds of sparrows. But the goldfinch has no use for 

 corn like the lark, he can't digest it his diet being 

 exclusively made up of small seeds, chiefly of the Com- 

 posite order, such as thistles, dandelions, and groundsel. 

 Nor does he share the taste of blackbirds, thrushes, and 

 starlings for garden fruits. James Hurdis, who died 

 more than a hundred years ago, knew that well enough. 

 Among many true touches of nature in his Village Curate, 

 he has one about the brightest of British finches 



' I love to hear the goldfinch twit and twit, 

 And see him pick the groundsel's feathered seeds ; 

 And then, in bower of apple-blossom perched, 

 Trim his gay suit and pay us with a song.' 



There are a few gardeners, no doubt, who are well 

 aware that, on such a perch, a bullfinch would be bent on 

 mischief, while a goldfinch is incapable of destroying a 

 single apple-blossom ; but with too many of the craft all 

 small birds are set down in the category of vermin. 



Even in those counties where the councils have ex- 

 tended protection to the goldfinch, the police are not 

 always alive to their duty in this respect. Last spring a 

 visitation of goldfinches took place in a certain fair valley 

 well known to me. Evidently they had come to nest, 

 and, Heaven knows, there is no lack of thistles as an 



