Amateur Apparatus
So too it is satisfactory to possess the right apparatus for containing the food of birds. A very wise commentator has been broadcasting advice upon the exact size of hole desirable in a cylinder of zinc designed for holding shelled nuts or what not. In practice I find a cage of small-meshed rabbit-wire quite effective. It may be that now and then a sparrow will play the tit and snatch a snack ; but the event is rare ; and the robin is much better at such unusual acrobatics than the sparrow. I was astonished during the recent frost to see what troubled many of the birds, even including chaffinch, in tackling grains of barley. Dry, uncooked porridge is a much more popular food ; and even a banana was more greedily consumed.
* * Erewiggles
A pathetic plea—by no means the first of its kind—reaches me for " help in my grief." The grief, continues the plea, is earwigs ! The sins of these undesirable insects are recorded in the precise detail of an expert gardener. The earwigs reduced the leaves of a largish solanum to lace-work. Of two fine passion plants covered with bud, one was devoured— every bud went on the Constance Elliot : . . Large, very large numbers were killed by hand and trapped in beanstalks and inverted flower pots. The date of disappearance is September. A much longer catalogue of crimes came some while ago from New Zealand ; and in answer to an S.O.S. the expetts at Rothamsted made an intensive study of the animal's life history and found two parasites (one on the eggs, one on the animal itself). These were bred in millions and exported where I believe they performed their proper function. The method of control is not advised for Britain, which has not the-capacity for exaggeration possessed by the sometimes too congenial soil and climate of New Zealand, where red deer may be vermin, where blackberry bushes may devour houses, and fish multiply to the point of their own starvation. The earwig does good as well as harm. As it lives only for one year at the most its numbers depend on the safety of the eggs, which may be laid at any time from November to April ; and the population does in fact fluctuate greatly. Also earwigs seem to use their wings much more often in some seasons than others. The dark traps that all gardeners use are the best method of reducing numbers. The use of poisoned bran—laid on window-sills to keep the insects out of the house—has not fulfilled expectations.
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