WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



front of suburban houses, pecking among the 

 gooseberry-bushes at the back, constantly- 

 chased by lapdogs, but constantly returning. 

 They came to the windows for food, and died 

 in gardens, beside roads, and in every field, 

 and along frozen drains.' ^ 



The loss of bird life during that winter will 

 never be known ; only naturalists can have any 

 idea of the countless throngs that suffered and 

 died. Many kinds were almost exterminated, 

 and in the district where I live birds which 

 used to be common are now scarce. The 

 following spring there were no thrushes singing 

 on the tree-tops; not a nest could be found. 

 In places where with hardly any htmting I used 

 to find twenty or thirty nests there was not 

 even one ! The blackbirds were represented by 

 just one or two survivors, and that summer it 

 was not necessary to net the fruit for there 

 were no birds to rob it ! 



Though thrushes often get entangled in nets 

 over fruit, they are not really half such thieves as 

 blackbirds. They are chiefly grub-eaters, but 

 blackbirds, there is no denying, are very 

 fond of berries and fruit. Of wild berries 



' H. M. Wallia, ' Mortality among Birds during the February 

 Frost in West Cornwall ' (flWMsA Birds, vol. x., 1916-17, p. 267). 

 60 



