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keepers and helpers, each with stick in hand, searching for the first 
laid pheasants’ eggs, to put under hens. Whenever we found a 
small bird’s nest it was knocked over with a stick by order of the 
head keeper, unless I happened to want the eggs for my own 
collection. The Warblers’ nests shared the same fate as the Green- 
finches’, and the gamekeepers’ reason for this was that the 
Warblers did harm in a neighbouring fruit garden. We found 
three Nightingales’ nests which I tried to defend, one especially 
was so near “ the house ’’ that it seemed a great pity to destroy it, 
but the gamekeeper was inexorable and said — “ We don’t want the 
vermin to keep the pheasants awake all night.” 
The Heronry at llerringlleet, where 1 well remember seeing as 
many as six nests in one tree, no longer exists, and the gamekeeper 
who has been there nearly six years, tells me that a year or two 
before he came, his predecessor shot the Herons from their nests 
and hung them up to produce maggots to feed the pheasants on ! 
1 believe the owner was very much annoyed and discharged the 
keeper, but it is probably impossible to reinstate the Herons. 
Many gardeners object to encourage in gardens such birds as 
Sparrows, Blackbirds, Thrushes, and one or two other birds 
hereafter to be mentioned, because they destroy so much fruit ; but 
the making of suitable nesting boxes is not necessarily encouraging 
them, for if a Sparrow nests in a box, the nest and Sparrows are 
much more easily destroyed than if the nest was under the tiles of 
a house. Leaving the Blackbirds and Thrushes to take care of 
themselves for the present, for they are numerous enough, I must 
say a word or two in favour of the Titmice ; they are accused of 
picking out the buds of the gooseberry bushes and other fruit trees. 
I have watched these birds picking most actively, apparently 
picking the axillary buds from the topmost shoot of a gooseberry 
bush : on examining this top sprig not a bud was missing but a few 
minute insects ( aphides ) were left on it, and it is to be hoped that 
the Blue tit returned for another meal. 
lluds are picked out by Bullfinches; primroses and crocuses* are 
decapitated in spring by House Sparrows in the early morning; and 
peas are destroyed by House Sparrows and other finches. The 
seed peas are taken out of the ground by long tailed Field-mice. 
There are many people who not only believe in the utility of our 
* I am indebted to Mr. Ilenry Stevenson for this note on Crocuses. 
