94 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
leaves no dusty comer uncleaned ; and the pigeons, 
that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods are 
also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, mag- 
pies, butcher-birds — Nature's gamekeepers, with a 
licence to kill, which, after the manner of game- 
keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. 
Above the earth, the air is peopled by swifts and 
swallows in the daytime, and by goatsuckers at 
night. And, as if all these were not enough, the 
finches are found scattered everywhere, from the 
most secluded spot in nature to the noisy public 
thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from 
flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the 
state of things, one might imagine that experience 
and observation are scarcely needed to prove to us 
that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and 
where its finest instincts would perhaps be at 
fault, would have no chance of surviving. Never- 
theless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of 
facts bearing on the subject which we possess point 
to a contrary conclusion. It might have been 
assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge 
would never have established itself with us, where 
the ground was already fully occupied by a native 
species, which possessed the additional advantage 
of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in 
spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has 
conquered a place, and has spread throughout the 
