It is commoner here, and is sometimes
very destructive, its powerful beak making havoc with the
"marrowfats"; but, though I am partial to green peas of this
description, I would sooner suffer some damage than have the
hawfinches shot.
In 1918 the cuckoos were exceedingly numerous here, and round my house
they were calling all day long. Owing to the terrible winter and early
spring months of the previous year, so many of the insectivorous birds
had been destroyed, that the caterpillars had escaped, and were more
numerous than ever in the following spring. The oaks in places were
completely stripped of their foliage by the larvae of _Tortrix
viridana_, almost as soon as the leaves were out. The cuckoos
discovered them, but were not in sufficient numbers to keep them down,
and it was midsummer before the trees recovered. I have referred to
the damage in my plum orchard at Aldington from the attack of the
larvae of the winter-moth; the damage is not confined to the actual
year of its occurrence, the crop suffers the following year owing to
the previous defoliation of the tree, which is weakened and is unable
to mature healthy fruit buds. At Aldington, in a hot summer, the
cuckoos used to call nearly all night, and I have heard them when it
was quite dark.
For some years, until 1918, goldfinches were quite common in Hampshire
and Dorsetshire.
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