BIRDS V. GARDENING. 



55 



BIRDS v. GARDENING. 



By Charles E. Pearson, F.R.H.S., M.B.O.U. 



[A paper read at the Horticultural Club, March 11, 1902.] 



The subject I have undertaken to deal with to-night is rather a difficult 

 one, not for lack of matter, but on account of the pitfalls which sur- 

 round it. 



A lover of birds is tempted to stray into ornithology and half forget 

 the garden, or to become sentimental, and, like Mr. Wegg, " drop into 

 poetry," which would probably not be considered as " friendly," as I have 

 noticed that this small assembly generally prefers practical suggestion to 

 hackneyed quotations. 



Another danger is that of taking up a brief for or against the feathered 

 race. Some gardeners speak as though horticulture would benefit by the 

 extermination of all birds, whilst others would strive to whitewash the 

 sparrow and endeavour to prove that the sooty suburban raider is a very 

 slightly disguised angel. Being myself fond of both birds and garden, I 

 have tried to speak without prejudice and judge each of our feathered 

 visitors to the garden on its merits. 



Without going further into generalities it will, I think, be convenient 

 to divide the feathered race into two camps — friends and enemies — dis- 

 missing for the time as foreign to our evening's discussion the third and 

 largest section of neutrals and rarities. It is necessary to add, however, 

 that some birds are rather difficult to classify, being friends at one time 

 and enemies at another, according to the scarcity or otherwise of food 

 and the pressure of strong temptation. 



Taking our foes first, and leaving the pleasanter part of the subject to 

 the last (like the youngster who leaves the sugar on his cake for a final 

 bonne bouche), there is, I think, no doubt that the sparrow (scientifically 

 known as Passer clamnabilis) heads the list. The farmer, of course, 

 suffers most from his depredations, and there are now few districts where 

 corn, if not carefully protected, would not lose at least 50 per cent, before 

 being harvested ; but the suburban gardener is generally even louder than 

 the farmer in his denunciations. The most annoying part of it is that 

 the majority of the sparrow's iniquities in the garden are ascribable to 

 sheer love of mischief rather than to stealing to satisfy his hunger. In 

 the early spring, when even a few Crocuses are a joy to the amateur 

 gardener as an earnest of summer glories to come, the sparrow makes 

 that joy extremely brief by rending the flowers in pieces and strewing 

 them about the border. Curiously enough, he seems to have a strongly 

 developed colour sense, and attacks the yellows more persistently than 

 any other shades. A "Primrose by a river's brim" is a subject of 

 indifference to a sparrow, but he seems to take a fiendish pleasure in 

 pulling out all the flowers from those which have been the objects of the 

 gardener's solicitude. The cultivation of the Gooseberry is almost a 

 hopeless labour where these pests abound, as they pull out all the buds 



