FINCHES. 41 



to breed in the country ; others migrate southward when they 

 flock,, and northward when they separate to breed, within the 

 island ; others again move to the uplands in the breeding 

 season, and return to the cultivated fields in the winter ; and 

 there are yet others which merely separate and nestle in the 

 hedges, bushes, and copses, adjacent to the fields on which 

 they flock during the winter. 



These birds are all eminently useful to the farmer and the 

 grazier, by consuming the seeds of all the taller and more 

 troublesome weeds, which, but for them, would overrun the 

 country beyond the preventive power of human art. That 

 each bird eats 100 seeds every day, is by no means an ex- 

 travagant calculation : which, however, gives to each the 

 prevention of 36,500 weeds every year. The birds cannot 

 be numbered ; but when the vast flocks which are seen every 

 where are considered, one hundred millions must be greatly 

 below the actual number. That would give the annual pre- 

 vention of weeds by the finches alone, at the astonishing 

 number of 3,650,000,000,000. Say that each weed would, 

 upon the average, occupy one square inch, (and many of them 

 occupy 100 square inches,) and the quantity of land which 

 the finches annually prevent from being overrun, is little 

 short of 600,000 acres, or more than one-seventieth part of 

 the total surface of England and Wales, whether cultivated 

 or uncultivated. It is true that many of the finches do not 

 live upon seeds all the year round ; but when they are not 

 destroying the seeds of injurious vegetables, they are probably 

 still better employed, in the destruction of insects. 



This calculation is much below the truth, and it applies 

 only to one genus of the birds, which consume the seeds of 

 noxious weeds. But still, it may serve to show the value of 

 those interesting little creatures even in an economical point 

 of view. Countries where the weeds get the better of the 

 little birds, are in sure progress to sterility. The settlers on 



