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that they do us much more good than harm—but, unfortunately 
for them, so much of the good they do is done out of sight. 
And perhaps I may here be allowed to draw attention to the 
fact that many people notice and observe the food of birds only 
when they happen to catch the birds doing them damage, or 
apparent damage! We have also on the list the hawfinch, 
greenfinch, tree-sparrow, brambling, chaffinch and bullfinch, 
all of which (more or less), certainly do some damage to 
farmers and gardeners; but only at certain short periods of 
the year. During the rest of the year they are doing a great 
deal of good. The chaffinch, for instance, a most annoying 
bird at seed time, eats a great many insects (besides feeding its 
young on them) and weed-seeds, and is one of our most useful 
birds. The brambling possibly picks up some scattered grains 
of spring-sown corn, but on the other hand is a great eater of 
weed-seeds. I need hardly say that the goldfinch is a purely 
beneficial bird. The common bunting has been accused of 
pulling straws out of ricks for the sake of the grain, but the 
damage which it would be possible to do to a well-built rick in 
this way would be extremely small. The yellow bunting, a 
winter visitor to stackyards, seems to prefer small seeds to 
corn, and eats many weed-seeds. We should remember that 
many of our small birds which do us so much good in summer 
by destroying insects, require to be kept alive on something 
else during severe weather and the dead of winter. We must 
not grudge them a little corn—even stored corn ;—while when 
they flock into the stackyards and pick up the scattered grain 
they at the most rob the poultry, and in gleaning the stubbles they 
do actual good (apart from eating weed-seeds), by picking up 
the shed corn which would the next year make the following 
crop untidy by germinating and sprouting up amongst it. 
Who would grudge larks the few grains of newly-drilled oats 
and wheat they may dig up, when the vast number of weed- 
seeds and insects they pick off the stubbles, fallows and plough- 
ings is considered ? The evidence for and against our small 
birds is too long to give here in detail. It will be found in a 
