BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
57 
detected in the act, he would have been discharged 
on the spot. 
This, I said, surprised me very much, since I had 
always had the idea that, as a rule, the fruit- 
growers were dead against the birds, and anxious 
only to kill as many of them as possible. 
It might be so in some places, he answered, but 
not in the village. He himself and most of the 
villagers depended, in a great measure, on the fruit 
they produced for a living, and their belief was, 
that taking one bird with another all the year 
round, the birds did them more good than harm. 
I then imparted to him the views on this bird 
subject of a well-known fruit-grower in the north 
of England, Mr. Joseph Witherspoon, of Chester- 
le-Street He began by persecuting the birds, as 
he had been taught to do by his father, a market- 
gardener ; but after years of careful observation he 
completely changed his views, and is now so con- 
vinced of the advantage that birds are to the 
fruit-grower, that he does all in his power to 
attract them, and to tempt them to breed in his 
grounds. His main idea is that birds that are fed 
on the premises, that live and feed among the 
trees, search for and attack the gardeners' enemies 
at every stage of their existence. At the same 
time he believes that it is very bad to grow fruit 
ji^ar the woods, as in such a case the birds that 
