THE COMMONER BIRDS OF OUR GARDENS. 



443 



The bird is extremely shy and wary, and difficult to shoot. It feeds 

 largely on acorns, although in the spring the jay devours a large number 

 of chafers and other beetles and grubs. It is, however, a great lover of 

 apples, plums, cherries, and ripe strawberries, and will commit havoc 

 among peas and beans in a garden near a wood. It is useful in destroying 

 young mice and blackbirds' eggs ; it is also said to eat many chaffinches' 



Blackcap : Sylvia atricapilla. 



This lovely songster, which likes to sing in the innermost recesses of 

 ■thick undergrowth, is one of the five fruit-eating warblers arriving about 

 the middle of April. Harting says the males arrive some days before the 

 females. Both birds take their turn in incubation and leave together early 

 in September. 



Yarrell says it is common in the south-east of England, attracted by 

 the fruit upon which the parent bird lives to a great extent, and after 

 bringing up its young upon various kinds of insects which infest fruit 

 trees — in which it unquestionably does us good service— it introduces 

 its progeny at length to more palatable pulp upon which it itself has 

 been faring so sumptuously. The female blackcap is larger than the 

 male, a very unusual thing in birds of this family. The top of the 

 head of the male is jet black while that of the female is a grey-brown. 

 Like other fruit- eating warblers, it has a half -hopping, half -creeping 

 motion. It eats all manner of insects ; also raspberries, cherries, and 

 figs ; around Worthing, owing to the damage it does, it is called the 

 " Fig-bird." 



Butcher Bird or Red-backed Shrike : Lanius collurio. 



This summer visitor of strange habits sometimes makes its nest in 

 gardens in the south of England. It seizes the young birds out of 

 neighbouring nests, and, bringing them home, places them in its " larder," 

 which consists of a bough of a thorn-bush on which it impales its prey, 

 whether beetles, bumble-bees, wasps, or birds. 



It sometimes gets badly mauled should the parent bird (for example 

 a thrush) whose nest it has ravaged be close at hand. The butcher bird 

 lays from four to six eggs. 



Brown-headed Sea-gull : Lams ridibundus. 



In stormy weather this bird travels ten or more miles inland, and 

 will sometimes come into a garden and pick up grubs. Mr. F. V. Theobald 

 tells me he examined one bird and found it full of young leather-jackets. 

 This gull is a useful friend to the farmer, feeding for the greater part of 

 the year on grubs and other noxious insects. 



Tree-creeper : Certhia familiaris. 



This small bird is a resident, but is not often seen and is difficult to 

 observe. It is found in all parts of the country more or less, chiefly in 

 woods and plantations, and is usually seen diligently searching the bark 

 and branches of trees for spiders, caterpillars and beetles. Its curved 



p p 2 



