252 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



as " even worse than the rook." Even the ornith- 

 ologists who are interested in birds as birds haven't 

 a good word to say of the daw. According to them 

 he alone is responsible for the disappearance of his 

 distinguished relation, the chough. (The vulgar 

 daw is of course devoid of any distinction at all, 

 unless it be his grey pate and wicked little grey 

 eyes.) 



The ornithologists were wrong about the chough, 

 just as they had been wrong about the goldfinch, 

 during the late years of the nineteenth century, 

 and as they were wrong about the swallows and 

 martins in later years. Of the goldfinch, they said, 

 and solemnly put it down in their books, that owing 

 to improved methods of agriculture the thistle had 

 been extirpated and the bird, deprived of his natural 

 food, had forsaken this country. But no sooner did 

 our County Councils begin to avail themselves of 

 the powers given them by the Bird Act of twenty 

 years ago to protect the goldfinch from the bird- 

 catcher, than it began to increase again and is still 

 increasing, year by year, all over the country. 



Of the decrease of swallows and martins, they 

 said it resulted from the action of the sparrows in 

 ousting them from their nests and nesting-sites. 

 But we know the true cause of the decline of these 

 two species, the best loved and best protected of 

 all birds in Britain, not even excepting robin red- 



