THE CUSHIE-DOO. IOI 



say that every bird does more good than harm ; 

 what good are those birds doing to my young 

 clover ? ' On this, in furtherance of my favourite 

 axiom, that every wild animal is of service to 

 us, I determined to shoot some of the wood 

 pigeons, that I might see what they actually 

 were feeding on ; for I did not at all fall into 

 my friend's idea that they were grazing on his 

 clover. By watching their line of flight from 

 the fields to the woods, and sending a man 

 round to drive them off the clover, I managed 

 to kill eight of the birds as they flew, over my 

 head. I took them to his house, and we opened 

 their crops to see what they contained. Every 

 pigeon's crop was as full as it could possibly be 

 of the seeds of two of the worst weeds in the 

 country the wild mustard and the rag weed, 

 which they had found remaining on the surface 

 of the ground, these plants ripening their seeds 

 before the corn is cut. Now, no amount of 

 human labour and search could have collected 

 on the same ground, at that time of the year, 



