198 
NATURE NOTES 
one bird that I have not the slightest hesitation in recommending caging and 
taming and making into a pet, instead of shooting, which is its usual fate, and 
that is the bullfinch. They do a vast amount of damage to fruit trees in taking fruit 
bloom-buds wholesale. An old friend related the other day that he could “ shovel 
up the buds ” (remnants), after them, and that he shot fifty-five one winter in 
his garden. I have no hesitation in recommending catching them for pets for 
somebody, as people will have pets, and why not the destructive birds ? They 
are easily tamed down, endure confinement well, and are pleasant companions, 
singing their low, plaintive song as well in the house as in the wood where nobody 
hears them. I have caught — or rather they have placed themselves voluntarily in 
confinement — twenty-one lately in my garden, and I know full well what a relief 
this means to fruit growers generally. I may say that there is no mistake that the 
wood-lark has been exterminated in this locality by bird-catchers, but as regards 
other species the numbers vary little. Nightingales have been more common 
this season than ever remembered. I hear of goldfinches of 200 in a flock, and 
linnets as plentiful, notwithstanding a vast quantity taken with clap-nets in the 
district. J. HlAM. 
Astwood Bank , Redditch. 
Is it wise to ask canary-keepers to give up their canaries ? Shall we not repel 
some of our friends if we ask them to eschew all cage-birds? I rather think so. 
The innate love which all of our members have for birds is just the reason, I take 
it, why some of them keep canaries, and this is an affection which must be 
gratified. I think the keeping of canaries should be encouraged if only to act as 
an antidote to the desire to capture wild birds which every one must have felt at 
some time or other. I regard the keeping of canaries as a potent means of 
protection of wild birds. Edward A. Martin. 
Are the Wild Birds Protection Orders to remain a dead 
letter ? — No, not in this district. Three seasons since we realised that the 
notice issued by the R.S.P.C.A. was unsuitable with its long schedule of birds, 
mostly comprising species unknown in the county, so we had printed a sheet 
Caution Notice (without any schedule or London address), particularly identifying 
it with “the nearest police station.” These cost thirty-five shillings per 1,000, 
including posting. Every March and April they have been circulated over a large 
suburban area, and this summer, by the kindness of our School Board, posted 
up in all their schools. The result is certainly satisfactory. 
Liverpool. C. 
Is the Blackbird imitative? — Your correspondent “S. A. Hawes” 
asks if the blackbird is imita- 
tive, as she (or he) has heard 
it begin its song with the bugle 
notes printed. These notes 
are certainly not the black- 
bird’s own song, which begins 
with the notes I have given 
here. I used, when a child, 
to think that it began with the first notes of “ Dixie’s Land,” and was provoked 
that it did not finish the tune. Marian II. Mason. 
Cuckoo. — A correspondent writes from Bideford, Devon: “Three people 
have told me that at noon on Sunday, September 4, they distinctly and un- 
doubtedly heard the cuckoo. Unfortunately they did not see the bird, and I 
cannot authenticate their statement further than that each hearer (though not 
all at the same standpoint) was quite convinced it was a genuine ‘ cuckoo.’ 
Possibly the occurrence may seem worthy of being noted.” 
Swallows and Martins. — There have been several letters of late in the 
daily papers on the diminution in numbers of swallows and martins throughout 
the kingdom. This may be true ; though it is not very noticeable hereabouts. 
Several suggestions are made to preserve these birds, which are especially dear to 
everybody, and as useful as dear. I know of but one remedy, and that is to pre- 
vent the sparrow from appropriating their nests. It is easily done. I make it a 
rule to destroy any brood of sparrows I find in the nests of swallows or martins ; 
