138 BLOOD-SUCKING INSECTS 



finches with siskins on his lawn), but many pairs 

 remain to breed in places where I had not seen a 

 single goldfinch for twenty years. 



Market gardeners complain bitterly about the loss of 

 fruit they sustain from the increase of small birds 

 owing to protective legislation ; nor is their grievance 

 groundless, especially in regard to bullfinches. But 

 there is no more blameless fowl than the goldfinch, 

 which has no use whatever for fruit or fruit buds, and 

 subsists entirely on the small seeds of thistle, ground- 

 sel, and other weeds of cultivation. But, like other 

 hard-billed birds, it has to provide animal food for its 

 young. In 1922 two broods of goldfinch were reared in 

 our flower-garden (a cat killed the prospective mother 

 of a third, after she had two eggs). It was pretty to 

 see the parent birds dipping their beaks into the foam 

 of 'cuckoo-spit' and pulling out the yellow grubs of 

 Philcenus spumarius. 



XXXV 



On the whole, we whose lot is cast in the British 

 Biood Isles may reckon ourselves fairly fortunate 



sucking in the matter of blood-sucking insects. Those 

 who suffer from indoor parasites have only 

 themselves to blame, seeing that the presence of such 

 creatures is inconsistent with domestic or personal 

 cleanliness. Out of doors, however, we are at the 

 mercy of a variety of winged assailants. There exist, 

 for instance, in Great Britain several species of gnat 

 (Culex) and midge (Ceratopogon). ' Mosquito ' is but 

 the diminutive of the Spanish mosca, a fly and is 

 properly applied only to insects of the genus Culex, 



