TIO 
NATURE NOTES. 
all seem to eat about the same quantity, according to their size, the 
sparrows gobbling up perhaps twice their share. The “ other 
birds ” are shyer, of course, but I can say with truth, I never 
observed one of them appear consciously to avoid any one of the 
sparrows. Overhead, six cocoa nuts dangle on strings from so 
many wire rose-arches. These for the tit-mice and nuthatch 
(probably they would greatly prefer fat bacon, but I don’t). 
The holes in the nuts have to be cut on the under side just to 
circumvent our heroes. One unlucky day the)' happened to 
pick up some cocoa crumbs that had fallen, and liked them so 
much that they looked up at the nuts and instantly “ went for ” 
them, the holes being at that time on the upper side. A titmouse 
will sit and look on and say nothing while a sparrow devours 
its own pet morsel. But the great tomtit {Ox-eye) will fight and 
beat off in no time any number of coles or blues. As for the 
crocuses and primroses and peas and pears and fruit buds, we 
know, of course, all about them. They want management — care 
and trouble — like everything else in a garden, and if we love our 
gardens they are worthy of all the care and trouble we can 
possibly bestow upon them. Crocus and all spring flowers are 
easily saved by a few yards of black thread wound along the 
tops of little sticks stuck in amongst them. Wire guards 
save seed and young peas. Threads or nets effectually protect 
all manner of fruit bushes. As for the fruit trees, we have never 
missed an apple or a pear through the birds ; there always 
appears to be enough for us all and for the wasps besides. 
Cherries, however, disappear by rooks, or starlings, if you don’t 
look out, directly they begin to redden ; but I never saw spar- 
rows after them. 
Poor sparrow ! the careful gardener need fear nothing so 
very dreadful from him, with all his wicked cleverness ! He is 
so wonderfully wary that he suspects a deadly snare in every 
inch of all that harmless black thread ! I should like to verify 
the theory that “ sparrows feed their young, after the first week, 
upon peas and young w'heat.” I know that now and again green 
food is considered by old birds of all kinds to be necessary to 
the health of the nestling. Thrushes have been seen to gather 
up grass left by the mowing machine on the lawn, and take it 
to the nest. Surely everyone ought to know that the sawfly 
(gooseberry caterpillar) cannot be swallowed by birds owing to a 
certain hairiness of its outside. The same objection exists for 
birds, in many other caterpillars which m say they ought to eat. 
By one of )'our correspondents, the merciful operations of the 
“ poisoned grain Act,” appears to be deplored. Had your corres- 
pondent beheld as I have, lanes all strewed with the dead bodies 
of greenfinch, yellow-hammer, blue titmouse, linnet, &c., &c., 
besides those of the hated sparrow — I think even he would have 
felt the Act had been passed none too soon. We knew a farmer 
who regularl}', in spring and autumn, used to drive to the nearest 
village, procure a bag of poisoned wheat, and drive gaily home 
