THE COMMONER BIRDS OF OUR GARDENS. 



433 



each time. The first brood is hatched about the middle of May. The 

 parents are strongly attached to their youDg. It nests on the ground, 

 and has a peculiar habit of making two or more hollows before one is 

 found to its liking. Miss Ormerod mentions the lark as probably eating 

 wire worms. 



This bird seldom comes into gardens,* but is common in market 

 gardens and on arable land generally, where it is destructive to the 

 seedlings of late-sown wheat, to peas when coming up, to vetches in 

 hard winters, and sometimes strips autumn-planted cabbage and Brussels 

 sprouts. It is a nuisance to early field strawberries, which it pecks, and 

 is hard to scare. The question from a market gardener's standpoint is, 

 Does the good it does in eleven months of the year balance the harm it 

 does in one ? 



It seems hard to have to speak so plainly of a bird, otherwise such a 

 general favourite both in the open country and as a cage bird in the 

 less-favoured dingy courts of towns, where it still sings lustily and appears 

 happy, sometimes living for nineteen or twenty years in captivity. 



It lives in pairs in spring and summer, but is gregarious in autumn 

 and winter, flitting about from field to field in search of food, flocks of 

 home-bred birds being often increased by arrivals from abroad as the 

 weather becomes more severe : these are said to be larger and much 

 darker in colour. From the north of England, on a heavy snow over- 

 whelming the food supply, they are impelled southward : some cross to 

 the Continent, others stay with us through the hard winter, shifting their 

 haunts if the ground is free from snow. They damage autumn-sown 

 wheat and green crops. The return of the emigrants in spring has been 

 noticed. Larks are excellent food and easily caught. 



House Martin : Chelidon urbica. 



The house martin is distinguished from the swallow by the white 

 chin, that of the swallow being chestnut brown. The martin has a white 

 breast and a white patch on back, with dark black head, wings, and tail. 

 The martin is generally distributed throughout fche British Isles, arrives 

 about the middle of April, and usually departs in September or October. 

 Its mud nest, shaped like the half of a cup, is common, usually being 

 placed against the wall and under the eaves of houses, and is entered by 

 a hole in the rim. Four or five eggs are laid, and two, or even three, 

 broods are reared in a season. It has at different times been proved that 

 individual martins return year by year to the same nest, or at least the 

 same locality. J. Gould mentions a case in his " Birds of Britain." 

 Unfortunately the martins are often dispossessed of their nests by house 

 sparrows. The martin catches winged aphides, gnats, and almost any 

 other flying pest, including moths, and is therefore very useful. 



The Rev. J. G. Wood says in his most attractive book ; " Garden Foes 

 and Friends," that the martin is more useful to the garden than the 

 swallow or the swift, because it catches the lower-flying insects, whilst 

 the swift and swallow catch the high-flying beetles, &c. 



* Mr. F. V. Theobald tells me in some hard winters larks have come into his 

 garden at Wye and stripped all the greens and winter spinach. 



