Birds are benefactors as well as injurers of the gardener. They destroy millions of grubs, caterpillars, and aphides, which would have ravaged his crops; but at the same time they commit sad havoc upon his fruit and seeds. The wisest course, consequently, is to scare them from the garden at such times, or from the portions of it in which they can be prejudicial, but to leave them to visit it unmolested whenever and wherever they cannot be mischievous. Thus in early spring a boy or two will drive them away during such time as the buds of the gooseberry, currant, and plum, are open to their attacks; and again during the time that the cherries are ripe. To keep them from the fruit of late gooseberries and currants, it is sufficient to interlace thickly the bushes with red worsted. To keep them from attacking peas and other vegetables just emerging from the soil, a similar display of white thread fastened to pegs about six inches from the surface, is also efficiently deterring. Nets, where available, are also sufficient guardians.

By these aids, but especially by the watching during certain seasons, the gardener may protect himself from injury at a very trifling expense, without depriving himself of the services of the most sharp-sighted, most unwearying, and most successful of all insect killers; and, it should also be added, one of the most agreeable appendages to rural life. Without birds, next to flowers, the country would he desolate. What delightful associations and recollections present themselves as we call to mind the chirping of the wren, the homely notes of the familiar cat-bird, the gambols of the martin, and the periodical visits of the confiding robin and snow-bird.