8 
JOURNAL^  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
.lanuary  1,  1803. 
Birds  Y.  Gardening. 
The  subject  I  have  undertaken  to  deal  with  here  is 
rather  a  difficult  one,  not  for  lack  of  matter,  but  on  account 
of  the  pitfalls  which  surround  it.  A  lover  of  birds  is  tempted 
to  stray  into  ornithology  and  half  forget  the  garden,  or  to  be¬ 
come  sentimental,  and,  like  Mr.  Wegg,  “drop  into  poetry,” 
which  would  probably  not  be  considered  as  “  friendly,”  as  I 
have  noticed  that  this  small  assembly  generally  prefers 
practical  suggestion  to  hackneyed  quotations. .  Another 
clanger  is  that  of  taking  up  a  brief  for  or  against  the  feathered 
race.  Some  gardeners  speak  as  though  horticulture  would 
benefit  by  the  extermination  of  all  birds,  whilst  others  would 
strive  to  whitewash  the  sparrow  and  endeavour  to  prove  that 
the  sooty  suburban  raider  is  a  very  slightly  disguised  angel. 
Being  myself  fond  of  both  birds  and  garden,  I  have  tried  to 
speak  without  prejudice  and  judge  each  of  our  feathered 
visitors  to  the  garden  on  its  merits. 
Without  going  further  into  generalities  it  will,  I  think, 
be  convenient  to  divide  the  feathered  race  into  two  camps — 
friends  ancl  enemies — dismissing  for  the  time  as  foreign  to 
our  evening’s  discussion  the  third  and  largest  section  of 
neutrals  and  rarities.  It  is  necessary  to  add,  however,  that 
some  birds  are  rather  difficult  to  classify,  being  friends  at 
one  time  and  enemies 
at  another,  according 
to  the  scarcity  or 
otherwise  of  food  and 
the  pressure  of  strong 
temptation.  Taking 
our  foes  first,  and 
leaving  the  pleasanter 
part  of  the  subject  to 
the  last  (like  the 
youngster  who  leaves 
the  sugar  on  his  cake 
for  a  final  bon  ne  bouelie), 
there  is,  I  think,  no 
doubt  that  the  spar- 
r  0  w  (scientifically 
known  as  Passer  dam- 
nabilis)  heads  the  list. 
The  farmer,  of  course, 
suffers  most  from  his 
depredations,  and 
thei’e  are  now  few 
districts  where  corn, 
if  not  carefully  pro¬ 
tected,  would  not  lose 
at  least  50  per  cent, 
before  being  har¬ 
vested  ;  but  the  sub¬ 
urban  gardener  is 
generally  even  louder 
than  the  farmer  in  his 
denunciations.  The 
most  annoying  part  of  it  is  tkat  the  majority  of  the  sparrow’s 
iniquities  in  the  garden  are  ascribable  to  sheer  love  of  mis¬ 
chief  rather  than  to  stealing  to  satisfy  his  hunger.  In  the 
early  spring,  when  even  a  few  Crocuses  are  a  joy  to  the 
amateur  gardener  as  an  earnest  of  summer  glories  to  come, 
the  sparrow  makes  that  joy  extremely  brief  by  rending  the 
flowers  in  pieces  and  strewing  them  about  the  border.  Curi¬ 
ously  enough,  he  seems  to  have  a  strongly  developed  colour 
sense,  and  attacks  the  yellow  more  persistently  than  any 
other  shades.  A  “  Primrose  by  a  river’s  brim  ”  is  a  subject 
of  indifference  to  the  sparrow,  but  he  seems  to  take  a  fiendish 
pleasure  in  pulling  out  all  the  flowers  from  those  which  have 
been  the  objects  of  the  gardener’s  solicitude. 
The  cultivation  of  the  Gooseberry  is  almost  a  hopeless 
labour  where  these  pests  abound,  as  they  pull  out  all  the 
buds  from  the  twigs  as  soon  as  swelling  commences.  Some¬ 
thing  may  be  done  by  dusting  the  trees  with  lime,  soot,  &c., 
and  by  threading  the  branches  with  cotton.  It  is  also  wise 
under  these  circumstances  not  to  go  in  for  hard  pruning,  as 
the  birds  seem  to  find  more  difficulty  in  abstracting  all  the 
buds  from  slender  whippy  shoots  than  from  shortened 
stumps,  and  by  leaving  a  sufficient  number  of  whiplike  shoots 
on  lightly  pruned  trees  you  ensure  at  least  a  partial  crop.  I 
have  seen  beds  of  Carnations  absolutely  ruined  by  being 
pecked  to  pieces  by  this  destructive  nuisance,  but  must  stop, 
as  to  catalogue  all  the  villainies  of  the  spaiTOw  would  need 
a  fair-sized  volume  ;  in  fact,  one  is  already  in  existence  in 
which  the  exhaustive  researches  of  Mr.  Tegetmeier  and  the 
late  Miss  Ormerod  are  chronicled. 
So  few  ordinary  observers  differentiate  between  the  house 
sparrow  and  its  near  relative,  the  tree  sparrow,  that  com¬ 
paratively  few  observations  respecting  the  latter  are  on 
record  ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  so  far  from  in¬ 
creasing  after  the  rapid  ratio  of  the  commoiier  species,  its 
numbers  remain  stationary,  if  not  actually  diminishing.  It 
lacks  the  aggressive  cheek  so  characteristic  of  the  house 
sparrow,  being  almost  retiring  by  comparison  in  its  habits, 
so  that  beyond  levying  toll  upon  the  Wheat  crops  I  do  not 
know  that  there  is  much  that  can  be  said  in  its  disfavour. 
The  greenfinch  and  the  chaffinch  have  considerable  affinity 
with  the  sparrow,  consorting  freely  with  him  and  partaking 
to  a  large  extent  in  his  sins.  Perhaps  the  most  annoying 
form  which  their  destructive  energies  take  is  that  of  uproot¬ 
ing  young  seedlings  just  as  they  are  pushing  through  the 
soil,  the  whole  of  the  Brassica  tribe  suffering  heavily  from 
this  cause.  If  the  gardener  attempts  to  save  his  own  seeds 
of  any  of  the  Cabbage  tribe,  he  wdll  need  to  be  an  early 
riser  to  outstrip  the  greenfinch,  which  has.  an 
enoiTnous  appetite  for  seeds,  being  worse  even  in  this 
respect  than  the  common  or  brown  linnet  (gorse  linnet  in 
the  Midlands),  though  it  also  is  a  voracious  seed  eater. 
The  linnet  is  more 
difficult  to  scare, 
though  easier  to  kill, 
than  the  greenfinch, 
as  it  will  fly  in  the 
face  of  a  gun  if  it  has 
tasted  seed,  while  the 
greenfinch  becomes 
very  wary  after  a  shot 
or  two. 
AVe  have  had  an 
interesting  addition 
to  the  list  of  garden 
robbers  in  the  Mid¬ 
lands  in  the  shape  of 
the  hawfinch,  or  gros¬ 
beak.  This  bird  was 
a  rarity  in  our  part  of 
the  counti’y  twenty 
years  ago,  but  has 
now  spread  all  over 
the  district  and  be¬ 
come  quite  common. 
“  Numerous  ”  would 
perhaps  be  the  more 
correct  w'ord,  as  the 
bird  is  so  shy  and 
wary  that  many  of 
those  who  have 
suffered  from  its 
visits  have  never 
seen  it  clearly  enough 
to  swear  to  the  identity  of  the  thief.  Gi’een  Peas  ai’e  its 
speciality,  and,  as  the  saying  is,  it  is  a  whale  for  them.  A 
pair  of  hawfinches  will  nearly  strip  a  good  row  in  a  couple 
of  days,  or,  at  least,  not  leave  enough  to  be  worth  picking. 
Their  appetite  is  simply  gigantic,  almost  upsetting  one’s 
belief  in  Euclid’s  axiom  that  “the  less  cannot  contain  the 
greater  ”  and  rivalling  even  that  of  the  wood-pigeon.  Even 
when  busy  feeding,  the  hawfinch  generally  keeps  one  eye  on 
the  look-out,  and  it  needs  a  careful  stalk  and  quick  shot  to 
secure  him.  The  best  method  of  destroying  these  birds  is 
trapping,  a  single  Green  Pea  on  the  plate  of  a  common  spring 
rat-trap  being  the  most  effective  bait.  A  most  interesting- 
communication  .  appeared  in  the  December  number  of  the 
“  Zoologist  ”  respecting  the  bird  from  Mr.  H.  E.  Howard, 
in  which  he  gives  the  result  of  very  careful  observations  on 
its  habits.  From  this  we  learn  that  our  Kentish  friends  have 
a  new  enemy  to  Cherry  culture,  as  Mr.  Howard  watched  the 
hawfinches  devouring  small  green  Cherries  in  May  when  they 
were,  of  course,  scarcely  formed,  and  would,  one  Avould  think, 
scarcely  have  proved  an  attraction  to  the  hungriest  of  birds. 
The  fruit  is  at  the  time  so  small  and  inconspicuous  from  its 
colour,  that  its  loss  might  well  remain  unnoticed  for  weeks 
until  all  chafice  of  tracing  the  mischief  is  well  passed,  so  that 
Cherry  growers  owe  a  debt  of  deep  gratitude  to  this  clever 
observer  for  placing  them  on  their  guard.  I  have  known 
rooks  and  jackdaws  play  havoc  among  Peas,  pulling  the 
