44 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



It is not want but rather the taste for a dainty spring 

 salad, which brings the Bullfinches every February to 

 the kitchen-garden and orchard, where they nip off 

 the buds of the fruit-trees. Year after year we have 

 to lament this exasperating habit of a favourite bird. 

 Carefully they go over the lilacs, cutting off all hope of 

 a good show of blossom ; the cherry-plum and the 

 pyrus japonica fare no better. It is useless to plead 

 that they are in quest of insects concealed in the buds ; 

 their crops contain a purte of greenstuff, without a 

 trace of grub or larva. Equally vain is it to urge that 

 they only take the leaf-buds and leave the fruit-buds ; 

 the reverse appears rather to be the case. Our own 

 fondness for the bullfinch would lead us to try anything 

 possible in the way of preventive measures, such as 

 scaring him away or netting the trees, before sending 

 a charge of shot after him, but others no doubt will be 

 disinclined to carry toleration so far. Sometimes a 

 little male Sparrow-hawk with slaty-blue back, sweeping 

 silently through the orchard, spies the offender and 

 gives him short shrift. In town-gardens the House 

 Sparrow now adds to his misdeeds by attacking the 

 crocuses and pecking them to shreds. Is this pure 

 mischief, or does it arise from a desire to sample any 

 early vegetable produce which comes to hand ? 

 Some would have us observe that it is only the yellow 

 crocuses which are thus treated, while the white and 

 purple ones are spared, whence they infer in the sparrow 



