BULLFINCHES AND APPLE-BLOSSOM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"] Sin,—Your correspondent asks whether bullfinches really destroy the blossom of the apple-trees. They do ; and they do this, not to reach some grub inside, as do the tits, but to eat the bud for food. These beautiful birds are more like the parrots, in their choice of food, than any others in this country, except the bawfineh and the crossbill. They are vegetable feeders, and crush in their strong beaks not only the seeds of the lilac, but also the stones of the hawthorn fruit. In spring, they eat the buds, preferably the flower-buds, of most fruit-trees, just as a parrot will eat raisins ; and in summer eat the cherries and wild-fruits. But, as your correspondent says, they are too ornamental to kill for the sake of a few pecks of apples. They are very old offenders. I find written in the margin of an old black-letter natural history, in the library of Hertford College, Oxford, the following note, penned early in the seventeenth century, opposite a rough engraving of a bullfinch :—" A smal fowle. He eateth my apple-buds in spring. Kill hym."—I am, Sir, &c., THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE ON VOLES.
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