OCTOBER 229 



'As regards the control of this caterpillar, the value 

 accruing from the presence of rooks and starlings cannot be 

 over-estimated. . . . The scarcity of the lapwing is a 

 further factor in connection with the existing plague.' l 



So much for birds as friends of the farmer ; but is 

 there not also some regard due to those songsters which 

 enliven woodland and garden with their song? 

 Pleasure, as well as business, is an economic factor in 

 rural lives, and a good deal of it would be missing if we 

 converted all our feathered songsters into ragouts as 

 the Italian peasantry do use. ' Mere sentiment,' do I 

 hear some reader murmur ? ' Well enough for " the idle 

 rich," but men and women hard working for a livelihood, 

 take no notice of what tickles the ear agreeably but 

 does nothing to stock the larder.' Do they not ? 

 I happen to have cut the following paragraph from the 

 Pall Mall Gazette so long ago as llth May 1889 



' An extraordinary scene is to be witnessed every evening 

 at Leicester in the freemans' allotment gardens, where a 

 nightingale has established itself. This midnight songster 

 was first heard a week ago, and every evening hundreds of 

 people line the roads near the trees where the bird has its 

 haunt. The crowds patiently wait till the music begins, and 

 the bulk of the listeners wait till midnight, while a number 

 of enthusiasts linger till one or two o'clock in the morning. 

 Strange to say, the bird usually sings in a large thornbush 

 just over the mouth of the tunnel of the Midland main line ; 

 it is heedless of noise and smoke and steam, the stream of 

 song being uninterrupted for four or five hours every night. 



1 The Journal for the following month September 1918 contains 

 a paper on the food of certain wild birds, by Dr. Walter Collinge, who 

 is well known for his patient and systematic research into this branch 

 of economic ornithology. His paper is well worthy of attention by 

 all persons engaged in agriculture and horticulture. 



