AMONG THE WHEAT. 151 



there repeatedly for insects, and, with the excep- 

 tion of the Tree Pipit, for nothing else. This 

 latter bird sometimes eats the young milky corn, 

 but the damage done is practically nothing. The 

 farmer's hedges and fields, all the summer-time, 

 are full of these and other soft-billed birds, busy 

 all the hours of daylight that they stay in this 

 country in search of insects ; ridding vegetation 

 of pests which, if left unchecked, would work ruin 

 and devastation on every side. These birds do 

 no harm whatever to man or his property, and 

 take no share of the harvest, which they so largely 

 help to protect, as their just reward. 



There are, however, some birds that fly about 

 the corn-fields which the farmer looks upon as his 

 friends. Would that the same welcome were ex- 

 tended to the rest ! These are the Swallows, 

 Martins, and Swifts. The farmer never molests 

 them ; he often forbids his servants to harm them, 

 and suffers them to use his barns and outhouses 

 for nesting-places. Yet these Swallows and 

 Swifts are only doing high up in the air what 

 scores of other little creatures are doing among 

 the leaves searching ceaselessly for insects. 

 Another bird few farmers care to molest is the 

 Wagtail. Its usefulness is apparent to them, as 

 they see it run daintily along the furrows at the 

 heels of the ploughman, or attend the labourers 

 in the turnip-fields. In these latter situations the 

 Wagtail is of inestimable service, its chief food 

 being the dreaded " fly." None the less useful 



