10 AUGUST 1929, Page 16

BIRD FOSTER-PARENTS

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Snt,—I think the following true story may interest some of your readers. In a wood near here there lives a semi-wild cat, which often makes its home in a box-tree by a cottage gate. Close by, on the lower branch of a tall apple tree hung a chaffinch's nest—with young birds in it, until ten days ago, when puss was successful in catching and eating both the father and mother bird. The four little chaffinches were apparently doomed to die. Two blackbirds looked on, protesting loudly, but soon—feeling no doubt that an ounce of help is worth a pound of sympathy—they set to work and began feeding the orphans. They worked hard for seven days, and at the end of last week the four little chaffinches left the