In My Garden The vegetable gardens of my neighbours have
been raided by very numerous jays, bred in small woods where also magpies and jackdaws have enormously increased since the country house was abandoned and no keeper left. Lines of peas have been almost cleared within a morning, though a few jays have been caught in protective nets. Three harpies appeared one morning in my potager and began puncturing the pods. We at once, without much confidence, rigged up a few glitterbangs, and to our surprise they so terrified the cautious birds that none has been seen since within the garden pale. It is chiefly, I think, the brightness of the tin-foil that so, scares them. These odd and ingenious starers have been equally successful in preserving cherries. If there is either any sun or any wind, they seem to me to be a sovereign remedy. Whether starlings, strangely absent this summer, would be so frightened I do not know.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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