56 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
on the branches of cherry-, plum-, apple-, and pear-trees, or on the twigs of the 
gooseberry- and currant-bushes, and the ground is strewed with the cases of the 
buds, marking out its course. Singularly enough the bird confines its attentions 
to the flower-buds, those producing leaves being passed by. This destructive habit 
of the Bullfinch cannot be defended or excused; but further research may prove 
that the bird is, after all, a real benefactor to the tree from which it levies such 
a costly tribute.” 
It does not strike me as singular that the Bullfinch should prefer the short 
stout buds to the thin pointed ones, but that is a detail. One thing must be borne 
in mind, however, that, in the older trees, if the Bullfinches reduce the number 
of fruit buds, they save the gardener the trouble of pruning away superfluous 
fruit; so that, as a matter of fact, the resulting crop may be just as good in the 
end, though with less trouble to the grower. 
If you want a tree to die, there are few surer ways of killing it than by 
boring a hole into the centre of the trunk and pouring in shot; the gardener who 
empties a charge of shot into the branches of his fruit-trees, can therefore hardly 
expect them to be benefited thereby. If he were wise he would bait a cage-trap, 
catch his Bullfinches and sell them at a shilling apiece for cage-birds: they would, 
even then, die quite soon enough to satisfy any feelings of enmity which he might 
nourish, for my experience of these birds in captivity is—that it is quite exceptional 
for them to become really tame even in large aviaries; consequently, unless hand- 
reared, they rarely live for more than eighteen months in captivity. 
When first turned loose in an aviary, a cock Bullfinch always creates a panic; 
his brilliant colouring seems to greatly alarm other Finches, so that his flight 
through the midst of them produces much the same result as the rush of a bull 
through a crowded street. Yet this powerful looking bird is really most inoffensive ; 
if annoyed he only opens his mouth and makes grimaces, and if he does become 
tame, he is not long in doing so: one which I had was tempted to take sunflower- 
seeds from my fingers three weeks after its capture: a Canary, with which I paired 
it, was far less afraid of it than our indigenous Finches. 
