BIRDS IN A GARDEN. 
173 
netting), and steadily diminished our currants and raspberries. 
Tliey got in without much difficulty, but getting out was another 
matter. Instead of seeking an e.xit by the way they entered, 
they flew backwards and forwards the length of the cage, vainly 
trying to force a passage through the stifT wire meshes, and 
refusing to avail themselves of the door that we opened for them 
at the side. Birds can apparently only see straight in front of 
them, and in the days when they were harnessed to fairy 
carriages did not require blinkers. 
We do not believe that birds injure iais. They have 
the credit of doing great damage of this sort in early spring, 
but, with all due deference, we consider this idea a fallacy. 
The bullfinch has been singled out for special reprobation, but 
we feel sure that he pecks only at the diseased buds, for the sake 
of the grub that lies concealed within them. In any case one 
bullfinch, with his sweet pipe and lovely plumage, is worth a 
good many gooseberries. W'e shall never cease to regret that 
once, yielding to the persuasions of a gardener, who said that 
they were destroying our chance of a crop of greengages, we 
allowed him to shoot one or two bullfinches. We felt quite 
conscience-stricken when we saw the beautiful creatures lying 
dead on the garden path, and inwardly resolved that we would 
never again consent to so murderous a deed. Moreover, to com- 
plete our remorse, our crop of greengages, far from being larger, 
was particularly bad the follow'ing year ! 
In autumn a few of the birds resume their song — notably 
the robins, 
“ Singing so thankful to the dreary blast. 
Though gone and spent its joyous prime 
And on the world’s autumnal time 
’Mid withered hues and sere its lot be cast.” 
Not till November is the garden quite silent. Then the birds 
fly to their coverts ; all nature sleeps, waiting till the warm 
spring zephyr shall blow 
“ Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth and fill 
(Driving sweet buds, like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours, plain and hill. ” 
A. L. Stevenson. 
[Mr. Stevenson’s name should have been appended to the 
article on “A Year’s Nests,” in our last issue. — Ed. iV.iV.] 
