THE PLAGUE OF BIRDS 193 



the bush in this way. The birds come in family 

 parties day after day to the same places, working 

 systematically. The damage is scarcely perceptible 

 to the naked eye until the following spring, when 

 the bush is like a blind giant, full of sap but unable 

 to grow through having aU its eyes picked out. 

 Many of them die in part or altogether, and numbers 

 are permanently injured. Gardeners do not always 

 put the injury down to the true cause, and bull- 

 finches — ^most destructive birds in other ways and 

 greatly on the increase — are sometimes blamed. 

 A few months back the writer went over a fine old 

 country place in one of the home counties, which 

 had recently become vacant through the death of 

 the owner. Noticing the well-known maimed look 

 and the absence of promise of fruit on most of the 

 fruit bushes, he spoke of it to the coachman, who 

 accompanied him. " Yes," said he, with a grim 

 smile, " it's them bullfinches. The old master 

 wouldn't hear of touching 'em ; but when the 

 furniture went the gardener got a gun and the 

 morning after shot over twenty of 'em." 



There is no doubt that if the tillers of the soil 

 were as vocal and had as much access to the period- 

 ical press as nature-lovers and bird-lovers, a very 

 bitter cry would go up throughout the land against 

 the increasing bird-plague and the damage that is 

 is being done. The increase in game preserving 

 has been mentioned as a secondary cause which 

 operates by diminishing the number of the birds' 

 natural enemies. It is no doubt a cause which has 

 to be taken into consideration. The magpie, for 

 instance, is a great destroyer of eggs and young 

 birds. It used to be a fairly common bird in the 

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