Wild Birds Useful and Ijniirious. 
G73 
or takes possession of the deserted drey of a squirrel. It appears 
to be more partial to game than the other species of owls, and 
is even said to alight on the coops at night for the purpose of 
devouring the young pheasants, which it frightens from their 
shelter by flap^li|g its wings and snapping its beak. 
The short-eared owl comes in autumn to this country from 
the north of Europe, often in very large numbers. Many 
remain with us through the winter, frequenting moorlands and 
open country rather than wooded districts. A few scattered 
pairs remain to breed, “ the mistaken zeal of gamekeepers, how- 
ever, in destroying this and other species of owls, which are 
probably the best friends the preserver of game could possess, 
precludes the chance of such nests remaining unmolested, unless 
placed in the most unfrequented spots.” It does not appear to 
be troubled by sunlight, and frequently hunts during the day- 
time. 
The Thrush Family. 
llie Blackbird, or Merle (Turdus merula). This familiar and 
handsome species, like so many others noticed in the present 
paper, is both beneficial and detrimental to the cultivation of 
garden or field produce. It is, in many instances, quite impossible 
to lay down with certainty how far the damage to fruit or to farm 
crops, resulting from the presence of a particular kind of bird, is 
counterbalanced by the benefits it confers upon the gardener or 
agriculturist by the destruction of injurious insects and the seeds 
of obnoxious weeds. Very many circumstances have to be taken 
into consideration before it can be satisfactorily decided whether 
an individual species is, in the aggregate, useful or the reverse. 
We must consider its relative abundance, the conditions of the 
locality in which it occurs, the system of cultivation followed, 
the kind of crops grown, the nature of the season, the time of 
year, even the individual fancy of the birds themselves ; for it is 
known that different birds of the same species will sometimes, 
under the same conditions and with the same opportunities, 
bring up their young on very dissimilar diet. Our knowledge 
is, at present, far too fragmentary to enable us to assign definite 
characters to all our birds. But it is well to remember that 
though we can usually form a fairly full estimate of the damage 
they effect, we have only the vaguest idea of the loss which would 
be sustained from insect ravages if it were not for their services. 
The nest of the blackbird is familiar to every egg- hunting boy. 
It may be distinguished from that of the thrush by the fact of 
its having the interior lined with fine grass. The eggs are 
pale blue, variably mottled with reddish-brown. The nest is 
