58 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



on bushes or espaliers which are low enough to be reached from the 

 ground. We have had to trap them by hundreds the last year or two to 

 save any fruit at all for ourselves from the nurseries, the dry summers 

 we have lately experienced having made them unusually troublesome. 

 When the Gooseberries ripen at Lowdham the blackbirds are reinforced 

 by flocks of missel-thrushes, which are more numerous there than in any 

 place I have seen ; in fact before we moved to Lowdham I had never 

 known the missel-thrush to be at all troublesome. 



Game birds are not usually included in a list of garden denizens, but 

 in some of those attached to country mansions pheasants are a serious 

 nuisance, pulling up Tulips and other bulbs and pecking things to pieces, 

 often apparently from mere curiosity ; they are also rather clumsy 

 walkers, trampling underfoot tender and brittle plants. Partridges, on 

 the other hand, are quite harmless, though not often seen in a garden. 

 I had last autumn great pleasure in watching a covey of thirteen 

 which visited my garden regularly without any fear as to evil resulting 

 from their presence. Peafowl add a grace to ancient gardens, but none 

 to the gardener (unless fluency in " language " be described as such), 

 being far more destructive than pheasants. 



I was reminded this afternoon not to forget the lark in my list of 

 feathered enemies, and I regret to say that there is some reason for its 

 inclusion, as it makes great havoc among clover in the winter and early 

 spring, eating all the heart out of the plants. This is a farmer's trouble, 

 but it also visits the garden and completely skeletonises all the Spring 

 Cabbage. No one would be Philistine enough to wish to lose the 

 "fine careless rapture" of the skylark's song, but at the same time one 

 is led to regard the slight annual thinning of its numbers for table 

 purposes as so far beneficial as not to call for discouragement. 



Turning now to the brighter side of the picture, one is glad to be 

 able to chronicle a small army of friends w T hose manner of life causes 

 the gardener to regard them with unmixed benevolence. These are the 

 purely insectivorous birds, including, among residents, the modest hedge- 

 sparrow, the graceful wagtail, the lively wren, and the robin. This last, 

 though sanctified by common sentiment in this country, is a pugnacious 

 little rascal, fighting to the death intruders on the small domain he has 

 marked out as his own ; he has also one blot on his character, his 

 principles failing to keep him in the path of honesty when ripe Cherries 

 are about. Among the migratory hosts all the warblers, the chiff-chaff, 

 willow-wren, white-throat, fly-catchers, &c. are without reproach and 

 ought to be carefully protected. The cuckoo, too, though needing a 

 kindly veil over its domestic affairs, is a gardener's friend, being a 

 destroyer of caterpillars, and is the only bird I know of which will tackle 

 the long-haired section of them. 



It is a misfortune that several of our most actively useful birds have 

 at times lapses from their ordinary standard of life which bring them 

 under the ban of the gardener, who is apt on such occasions to forget 

 their previous good deeds and insert them on his black list. The starling, 

 for instance, is one of our very finest grub and caterpillar destroyers, but 

 hifl extraordinary infatuation for Cherries often leads him to an untimely 

 end, as nothing but shot will keep him from them. I have had starlings 



