204 
NATURE NOTES 
he is the guardian of the woods, preventing the spreading of 
the pernicious pests that destroy the trees. 
Birds and beasts, in devouring the fruits of the trees, are 
the unconscious agents of Nature. They scatter the seeds upon 
the earth which the mole and the worm have ploughed and 
the rain has softened. They were the first sowers and reapers. 
In their apparently idle life they are doing the will of their 
Creator : they are obeying the law of Nature. The trees that 
they sow are given them for an habitation. The birds build 
in the green foliage, the beasts take up their abode beneath 
the spreading boughs. Nature pays her husbandmen in food 
and shelter, and out of the dust of those she has fed and clothed 
rises the food of her future servants. The balance and harmony 
of Nature are wonderfullv maintained. 
A BIRDS’ RESTAURANT. 
T is before a sunny drawing-room window, just high 
enough for safety from the cat of the house. A little 
wooden table has been fixed to the window sill ; it has 
a raised rim to prevent the delicacies spread upon it 
from being blown away, or brushed off by careless wings ; and 
a strong wire frame-work, originally intended as a support for 
creepers, now serves to suspend cocoa-nuts or the cleverly-made 
little wire baskets which hold the hemp-seed beloved of the tits. 
The top bar is also a convenient perch for them, and they are 
able to crack the husks off the seeds by knocking them against 
it ; while their cheery tapping and twittering make a gay 
accompaniment to the occupations of the kind restaurant keeper. 
No enemy disturbs them but the burly greenfinch and his wife ; 
this pair are like the fabled dog in the manger, and though they 
can only feed on one of the cocoanuts, or pick seed out of one of 
the little baskets, they allow no tit to come near the restaurant 
while they are in possession. If one, bolder than the rest, should 
dare to approach, he is driven off by Mr. and Mrs. Greenfinch 
with angry flapping of wings. 
Further away, other dainties hang from a convenient pergola, 
and here the rooks are not above stealing lumps of suet. It 
needed a certain amount of ingenuity for them to invent a way 
of getting at the suet, as it swings by a string a foot or so long. 
One would perch on the wooden cross-bar to which the string 
was tied, and pick up a loop of it in his beak, then he would 
hold this with one foot while he pulled up a further length of 
string, and so on till he landed the tempting morsel before him 
on the bar. And sometimes the sentinel rook, who had been 
watching the performance from the fence close by, would utter 
his harsh warning before the other had time to taste the reward 
of his cleverness, and away they both would fly, leaving the 
bit of suet to fall and swing once more. C. G. W. 
