USE OF SMALL BIRDS. 25 



end to it. The cage had been again set on the out- 

 side of the window, and was unfortunately left 

 exposed to a sudden and heavy fall of rain: the con- 

 sequence was that the whole of the young were 

 drowned in the nest. The poor parents, who had 

 so boldly and indefatigably performed their duty, 

 continued hovering round the house, and looking 

 wistfully in at the window, for several days, and 

 then disappeared*. 



Before we take leave of this tribe of small birds, 

 we would say a word or two respecting the benefit 

 or injuries imputed to them. That they are occa- 

 sionally mischievous, cannot be denied, though it is 

 but fair to add, that they also, like the Rooks before 

 mentioned, repay us by a considerable balance of 

 good. That the Bullfinch feeds on the buds and 

 seeds of trees, there can be no doubt, and that the 

 Chaffinch, though by many considered as a pure 

 feeder on insects, does the same, particularly in 

 early Spring, when he inflicts ruinous injury on the 

 sprouting crops of several plants, is equally true. 

 Sparrows, too, burrow in our stacks, and consume a 

 certain quantity of corn; not, indeed, in the same 

 serious quantities that another bird does, called the 

 Snow-Bunting: these birds, in hard Winters, come 

 from the north in prodigious flocks, and where they 

 take up their quarters, become quite a nuisance; 

 not so much by what they consume, as by what 

 they destroy; which they do thus : In search of 

 grain, they frequent the stack, and then seizing 

 the end of a straw, deliberately draw it out. 

 To such a degree has this been done by them, 

 -* Edin. Phil. Jour. 



