Birds in London Part 12

To return to the parks. The question is how to exclude the hunting cats that frequent them at night. I have conversed with perhaps a hundred superintendents, inspectors, and keepers on the subject, and invariably they say that it is impossible to exclude the cats, or that they do not see how it is to be done. And yet in many parks they are always trying to do it; they hunt them at night with dogs, they shoot them with rook rifles, and they poison them: but all these measures produce no effect, and are, moreover, employed with secrecy and with fear lest the paragraph writer and public should find out, and an outcry be made.

It is plain that the cats can only be kept out by means of a suitable fence, or net, or screen of wire. Rabbit wire netting is hardly suitable, as it is unsightly and is not an efficient protection. The most effectual form would be a plain wire fence in squares, the cross wires tied to the uprights with wire thread, the top of the fence made to curve outwards to prevent the animals from climbing over it. This screen could be placed inside of the park railings at a distance of about three or four feet from them. A fence or screen of this pattern has a handsome appearance, but it is expensive, the cost being about fourpence to fivepence the square foot. Probably some other cheaper and equally effective wire protection could be designed. I have consulted some of the large dealers in wire netting and fencing of all kinds, and they tell me that a fence to keep out cats from parks has yet to be invented. Very likely; at the same time there are probably very many ingenious persons in England who would quickly invent what is wanted if it was made worth their while. It simply comes to this: if the park authorities really wish to keep out the cats they can do so at a moderate cost, and it is not likely that even their worst critics would venture to blame them for spending a few hundreds for such an object.

We must look to the County Council to take the lead in this matter. It is my conviction--there is much even now going on in some of the parks to show how well founded it is--that once the chief destroyer of our valuable birds is excluded, a great and rapid improvement in the character of our bird population will ensue. The number of the species we value most would be relatively larger. The change for the better would come about without any direct encouragement and protection being given; at the same time it would be an immense help if those who are in charge of open s.p.a.ces could be brought to see that wild bird life is very much more to the people of London than all the pleasant and pretty things in the way of bands of music, exotic flowers, and brick and stone and metal ornaments, which they are providing at a very considerable cost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STARLING AT HOME]

CHAPTER XVI

BIRDS FOR LONDON

Restoration of the rook--The Gray's Inn rookery--Suggestions--On attracting rooks--Temple Gardens rookery--Attempt to establish a rookery at Clissold Park--A new colony of daws--Hawks--Domestic pigeons--An abuse--Stock-dove and turtle-dove--Ornamental water-fowl, pinioned and unpinioned--Suggestions--Wild water-fowl in the parks--Small birds for London--Missel-thrush--Nuthatch--Wren--Loudness a merit--Summer visitants to London--Kingfisher--Hard-billed birds--A use for the park sparrows--Natural checks--A sanctuary described.

My purpose in this chapter is to make a few suggestions as to the species which may be introduced or restored with a fair prospect of success, and which would form a valuable addition to the metropolitan wild bird life. The species to be mentioned here have very nearly all been resident, some of them very common, in former years; most of them survive on the borders of London, and some still linger in diminished numbers in a few of the interior open s.p.a.ces.

Most persons would probably agree that of all the large birds that were once common in London, the rook would be most welcome. In the chapter on this bird I said that irretrievable disaster had overtaken the London rookeries, that the birds had gone, or were going, never to return; nevertheless, I believe that it would be possible, although certainly not easy, to reintroduce them. We have not wholly lost the rook yet; he is to be found in many places on our borders; and the continued existence of the ancient colony at Gray's Inn is a proof that rooks can live in London, and would doubtless be able to thrive in some of the parks where there are large trees, and from which the birds would not have to travel so far in search of food for their young. With regard to the Gray's Inn rooks, which are greatly valued by the Benchers and by very many others, I will venture to make a suggestion or two, which, if acted on, may produce good results. Probably no bird from outside is ever attracted to this colony, confined to so small an open s.p.a.ce in the very heart of London, and it is possible that through too much in-and-in breeding for many generations, the birds have suffered a considerable loss of vigour. It would be a very easy matter to infuse fresh blood into it by subst.i.tuting eggs from some country rookery for those in the nests. This experiment would cost nothing; and it would also be worth while to provide the birds with suitable provender, such as meal-worms, at the season when the young are growing and require more food than the parents are probably able to give them.

No doubt some readers of this book will say at once that the reintroduction of the rook into London is impossible, since even in the rural districts, where all the conditions are favourable, it is found extremely difficult to induce the birds to settle where they are wanted.

A year or two ago my friend Mr. Cunninghame Graham, writing from his place in the north, told me that he had long desired to have rooks in his trees, and that he had written to an eminent ornithologist, with whom he was not personally acquainted, asking for advice in the matter.

The naturalist replied at some length, pointing out the fallacies of Socialism as a political creed, but saying nothing about the rooks.

Probably he had nothing practical to write on the subject, but he might at least have informed his correspondent that Mr. Hawker, the famous parson of Morwenstow, had got his rooks by praying for them. He prayed every day for three years, and his importunity was then rewarded by the birds coming and settling on the very trees where they were wanted.

We have an account of the curious origin of the Temple Gardens rookery, one of the best known and most populous of the old London rookeries. In the 'Zoologist,' vol. x.x.xvi. p. 196, Mr. Harting relates that it was founded in Queen Anne's time by Sir Richard Northey, a famous lawyer at that period, who brought the first birds from his estate at Epsom. A bough was cut from a tree with a nest containing two young birds, and conveyed in an open waggon to the Temple, and fixed in a tree in the gardens. The old birds followed their young and fed them, and old and young remained and bred in the same place. The following year a magpie built in the gardens; her eggs were taken, and those of a rook subst.i.tuted; these in due course were hatched and the young when reared became an addition to the colony.

Professor Newton has said of this pleasant story that he would gladly believe it if he could, and it has been discredited by the discovery that a rookery existed at the Temple prior to Queen Anne's time.

Aubrey's statement, which has been quoted in disproof of the Northey legend, is that the rooks built their nests there in the spring after the plague, 1665. My inference is that the rookery was an old one, which the birds abandoned during the plague, and afterwards reoccupied. We may then suppose that later on the birds went away again for good; and that Northey, knowing that a rookery had formerly existed at the Temple, and inspired by a lawyer's very natural admiration for the grave, black-coated, contentious bird, succeeded in restoring it in the manner described. In any case, it is not probable that such a story would have been told of the Temple rookery if the plan attributed to Northey had not been successfully employed somewhere and somewhen. It is well worth trying again. I should like very much to see the experiment made by Lord Ilchester, who has long desired to see the rooks back in Holland Park; he would not have to bring the young birds in their nests in open waggons all the way from Melbury or Abbotsbury, as there are several rookeries where young birds in the nests could be had within five or six miles of Holland House.

Another more promising plan is to get the young birds and rear them in the park where they are wanted. This plan has already been recently tried, not by any person of means, but by a humble park sergeant at Clissold Park. Sergeant Kimber is an interesting man, and deserves to be highly thought of by all bird-lovers in London; he has during most of his life been a gamekeeper, but knows a great deal more about birds and loves them better than most men who have that vocation. With the permission of the County Council, he obtained about a dozen young rooks from the country, some from Yorks.h.i.+re and others from Wales; the birds were placed in an enclosure with a good-sized tree growing in it with branches drooping to the ground, so that they were able to ascend and descend at pleasure. Unfortunately their wing feathers were cut, which prevented them from learning to fly for about a year; even after two years the survivors are still unable to fly as well as wild birds. Six birds remained up to the spring of 1897; one only of these appeared to be a male. This bird paired and a nest was built, but after its completion the pair flew away together one morning to some open ground on the outskirts of North London where they were accustomed to feed, and never returned. Doubtless they had been shot by the sportsmen who still infest the waste lands and marshes on that side of the metropolis.

Sergeant Kimber now thinks that it was a mistake to clip his rooks'

wings, and hopes to succeed better next time.

This experiment with tame rooks has incidentally resulted in a gain to the bird life of North London. In the aviary at Clissold Park a tame female daw was kept; there she formed a very close friends.h.i.+p with a parrot, who had the original way of manifesting, or perhaps I should say dissembling, his love by pulling out her feathers. No doubt she was very much enamoured of the green bird with his foreign ways and commanding voice, as she was always at his side and never in the least resented his ungentle treatment. The poor bird's breast was at last quite denuded of its covering, and the whole plumage was in such a thin and ragged condition that it was thought best to separate the friends, even at the risk of breaking their hearts; accordingly the daw was taken away and placed with the tame rooks. The rooks treated her very well, and in their society she probably soon forgot her foreigner. And by-and-by a wild daw was attracted to the tree and joined the company: this was a male bird in fine plumage, and Sergeant Kimber conceived the idea that it would be a good stroke to catch it and clip its wing-tips to prevent it from going away. The wild daw was very cunning; by day he would remain most of the time with the rooks and his ragged friend, but at night he invariably retired to roost in some tall trees in another part of the park. In spite of his cunning he was eventually caught and placed on the rooks' tree with just the tips of his wings clipped. From that time the two daws were inseparable, and their romantic attachment promised to end in a lasting and happy union; but after a few weeks a second wild daw, this time a female, was attracted to the tree and joined the little community. This was a fine glossy bird, and no sooner had she come than the male daw began to make up to her, coolly throwing over his first love. By this time he had recovered his power of flight, and after pairing with the new-comer the two went away to spend the honeymoon and look for a suitable residence in the country. The ragged daw lived on with the rooks for a few weeks longer, then she too disappeared, being now able to fly. Three or four weeks later, to everybody's astonishment, they all came back together accompanied by a fourth bird, a male, with which the ragged one had paired. Somewhere roaming about outside of London they had all met, and the ragged female had probably persuaded them to forget past unpleasantnesses and return to the park; at all events they all seemed very friendly and happy.

During the summer of 1897 both pairs bred, one in the upper part of the tall spire of St. Mary's Church, Stoke Newington, which stands close to the main entrance to the park; the other in a building close by.

We see from this that wandering and apparently homeless daws often visit London, and are quickly attracted by any tame unconfined bird of their own species; and that where daws are wanted, an excellent plan is to use a tame bird as a decoy.

It is exceedingly improbable that any of the raptorial species which formerly inhabited London--peregrine falcon, kestrel, and kite--will ever return, but we could have these birds by rearing them by hand from the nest, and allowing them to be unconfined. If well and regularly fed they would remain where they were reared, or if they went away for a season they would most probably return. It would be a great pleasure to see them soaring above or about our buildings, and they would also be useful in keeping down the domestic pigeons, which are now much too numerous and are fast becoming a nuisance in some of the parks, where they devour the food originally intended for the wood-pigeons. The domestic pigeons have a pretty appearance at St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Palace, and other large public buildings; in the gra.s.sy parks they are out of place and do not look well; furthermore, when we find most, if not all, of these park-haunting birds come from big private houses in the neighbourhood, where they are bred for the table, it is surprising that the park authorities should continue to feed them at the public expense. Let us hope that this abuse will soon be put an end to; also that it will be recognised by the authorities that it is a mistake to keep dovecots in the public parks.

The stock-dove could easily be introduced into London by placing its eggs, which can be obtained at a trifling cost, under both the domestic pigeon and wood-pigeon. It may be that the wood-pigeon would also prove a suitable foster-parent to the turtle-dove. This species is a strict migrant, but if bred in the parks it would no doubt come back annually from its journeys abroad. In any case the experiment is well worth trying.

Before going on to the small birds which may be introduced or encouraged to settle, something need be said about the ornamental water-fowl of the parks, which might be made more than they are to us, and put to a new use. There is no doubt that just as one daw attracts other daws so do these water-birds attract any of their wild relations which may be pa.s.sing at night. Mallards, widgeon, and teal, supposed to be wild birds, have been known to appear in some of the parks to pair with the park birds and remain to breed; in a few instances some of these strangers have actually been captured by the keepers and pinioned to prevent them from leaving. This was a great mistake; for a.s.suming that the birds really were wild, it is probable that after going away for the winter they would have returned, and might even have brought some of their wild fellows. I believe that our ornamental water-fowl ought never to be pinioned except in the cases of a few rare exotic species. When a bird is pinioned its chief beauty and greatest charm are lost; it is then little more than a domestic bird, or a bird in a cage. Sheldrakes, both common and ruddy, are infinitely more beautiful when flying than when resting on the water; and all wild ducks are seen at their best when, before alighting, they sweep along close to the surface, with wings motionless and depressed, showing the bright beauty-spot. There are, in fact, many unpinioned fowls on the park waters, and some of these birds not only fly about their own ponds, but they occasionally visit the waters of other parks, especially by night, and are well able to find their way back to their own ponds. In some cases they make prolonged visits to other parks. In one London park for the last three years a number of tufted ducks (from eight to a dozen) have made their appearance on the ornamental water each spring, and have remained until the autumn, then disappeared; it is not known where they spend the winter. In the same park a pair of pinioned ruddy sheldrakes were kept. In April 1897 they were joined by a third bird, a drake, in very beautiful plumage. After being two or three days in their company, he attacked the pinioned drake with great fury and drove him off, and took possession of the duck. The ornamental water of another park has been visited at odd times by several Egyptian geese, sometimes appearing regularly every morning and departing in the evening, at other times making long stays; and I have heard of many other instances of the kind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOORHEN AND CHICKS]

There are many and good reasons for believing that water-fowl hatched and reared in the parks would, if they went away for a period in autumn and winter, return in spring to breed. A fair trial might be made by giving the eggs of wild birds--widgeon, teal, gadwell, shoveller, and other suitable British species, to the park ducks when breeding. In this way a London race of each or of a few of these species might be established; like our black-headed gulls, moorhens, and dabchicks, they would be wild birds, although not shy, and they would certainly be more beautiful and vigorous and give us more pleasure than their pinioned relations. Coots hatched and reared by the moorhens would give us another wild bird well suited to thrive in the park lakes; and I will venture to add that we might even get the great crested grebe, by placing its eggs in the dabchicks' nests. The breeding habits of these two species are identical; they differ very considerably in size, but there is not so great a disparity between little grebe and great grebe as there is between the cuckoo and its foster-parent.

Of small birds, or songsters, it will not be necessary to mention more than a few of the species which might be introduced with advantage, since little can be done so long as the bird-killing cats are free of the parks, and little will need to be done once the cats are excluded.

Such species as the robin and hedge-sparrow require protection when breeding; they are now dying out for want of it, and will undoubtedly increase again whenever the park authorities think proper to give it.

The quickest and most effective plan to add to the number of our species is to procure the eggs of suitable wild birds, to be hatched in the nests of the park birds. Thus, the missel-thrush might easily be got back by placing its eggs in the nests of blackbirds and thrushes. The large size and handsome plumage of the missel-thrush, or storm-c.o.c.k, his das.h.i.+ng motions and loud winter song, would make him one of our most attractive birds; and that he is well able to thrive in London we have already seen.

Another bird which no one is ever tired of seeing and hearing, and would be a great acquisition, is the nuthatch; this species, although not uncommon on the wooded borders of London and in some of the outlying parks, would no doubt have to be introduced by man. The nuthatch is a difficult bird to manage, on account of its violent temper and impatience of confinement; but it is possible that the starling, which, like the nuthatch, breeds in hollow trees, and feeds its young on much the same kind of food, might make a suitable foster-parent. At all events, the experiment is worth trying. It should be easy to procure its eggs, as the bird is very common in many well-timbered parks and open oak woods within a short distance of London. There are, I imagine, few small birds more fitted to give pleasure to Londoners than the nuthatch, on account of his quaint figure and pretty plumage, his sprightliness and amusing squirrel-like movements on a trunk or branch of a tree.

Though not strictly a songster, his various clear penetrative call-notes are very delightful to hear; and he is most loquacious in late winter and early spring, when bird-voices are few. Furthermore, of wild birds that may be taught to come to us for food he is one of the quickest to learn, and will follow his feeder, or come at call, and deftly catch the nuts and crusts and fragments of any kind that are thrown to him.

Two other small birds with loud bright voices--both London species, but now very nearly vanished, as we have seen--are the oxeye and wren. I think the best plan with regard to these two--and the same plan might be tried with the nuthatch in the event of the starling's failure as a foster-parent--would be to catch the young birds shortly after leaving the nest, and release them as soon as possible in the parks. All these three have the habit of roosting in families, old and young together, in a hole or other sheltered place; and if taken at night and released the following day where they were wanted, they would probably soon adapt themselves to their new surroundings.

The wren, indeed, appears to have more adaptiveness than most birds, being universal in the British Islands, and able to survive the cold and scarcity of the long northern winters, even in the most bleak and barren situations. That he is well able to thrive in London we know, in spite of the fact that he has now all but vanished from most of our open s.p.a.ces; for we have seen that in one park, within two miles of Charing Cross, where he is more encouraged and better protected than elsewhere, he is actually increasing in number. He is a delightful little bird, a very general favourite, and is a winter singer with a bright, beautiful, lyrical song, wonderfully loud for so tiny a creature. I was never more impressed with the loudness of its song than on one Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1897 in Battersea Park. I was walking with the park superintendent round the lake, listening for some new summer voice, but for some time no bird sound reached us. Fifty or sixty boats full of noisy rowers were on the water, and the walks were thronged with loudly talking and laughing people, their numberless feet tramping on the gravel paths producing a sound like that of a steam roller. My companion exclaimed impatiently that it was impossible to hear a bird-note in so much noise. He had scarcely spoken before a wren, quite fifty yards away, somewhere on the island opposite to us, burst out singing, and his bright lyric rang forth loud and clear and perfect above all that noise of the holiday crowd.

It would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to introduce by artificial means any of the summer visitants in the absence of soft-billed birds to play the part of foster-parents. The hedge-sparrow, the best bird for such a task, is too rare; should he increase again, the case will be different. At the same time it may be said that the better protection which alone would cause the hedge-sparrow and robin to increase would also attract the migrants to breed in the parks. At present, the summer songsters that come regularly to breed in various spots on the borders of London are the following: whinchat, stonechat, redstart, nightingale, whitethroat, lesser-whitethroat, blackcap, garden warbler, chiffchaff, willow-wren, wood-wren, sedge-warbler, reed-warbler, pied wagtail, and tree-pipit. All these species, excepting the wood-wren, visit the open s.p.a.ces of inner London on migration in spring. The chats, redstart, and tree-pipit are much rarer than the others; but of the fourteen species named, at least eight can be seen or heard by any person who cares to spend two or three days in the parks, to watch and listen to the birds, after the middle of April. This list is limited to the species which I have no doubt would breed in the parks if encouraged; the three species of swallows, the wheatear, yellow wagtail, and other summer visitants are also seen in April in London, but these are simply pa.s.sing through.

The kingfisher, singly and in pairs, has been a rather frequent visitor to the parks during the last two years, and in some instances has made a long stay: there is no doubt that the abundance of minnows in the ornamental waters and the shelter of the wooded islands are a great attraction. No instance of its attempting to breed has yet occurred, but this may be due to the want of a suitable place to nest in. It is possible that the noise of the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday boating people in the larger lakes, and the persecution of the sparrows, who hate him for his brilliant dress, may drive him away; still, it would be a good plan to construct an artificial bank or rockery, with breeding holes, on one of the islands at a suitable place like Battersea.

The hard-billed birds would no doubt be the easiest to introduce, owing to the large number of sparrows that nest in the park trees, from which the eggs could be taken and those of other species subst.i.tuted; and if by acting as foster-parents to other finches the sparrows would only be breeding crows to pick their own eyes out, as the proverb says, so much the better. Chaffinches and greenfinches have been successfully reared by sparrows; and to these two other equally desirable species might be added: yellowhammer, corn-bunting, reed-bunting, bullfinch, goldfinch, and linnet. These are charming birds and good songsters; even the corn-bunting, although generally belittled by its biographers, is, compared with the sparrow, an accomplished musician. They are furthermore all exceedingly hardy, and probably as well able to thrive in London as the sparrow itself, although not so prolific and pus.h.i.+ng as that sometimes troublesome bird. It is, indeed, on account of their hardiness that they, or those of them that have the best voices, are so much sought after; for they will live and be lively, and sing, for a period of ten or a dozen years, even in the miserable prison of a little cage in which they are kept by those who love them.

The excessive numbers of sparrows in the parks, where, as we have seen, there is no natural check on their increase, is a question difficult to deal with, and no remedy that is not somewhat unpleasant to think of has yet been tried or suggested. In some of the parks the nests are pulled down by the hundred; but where this plan is followed it is said to be of little avail, owing to the energy and persistence of the birds in making fresh nests. In other parks the birds are, or have been, netted at night in the bushes, where they roost in crowds. Poisoning the sparrows has also probably been tried; at all events, in one park I have found the sparrows looking sick and languis.h.i.+ng, and many dead birds lying about, as if an epidemic had broken out among them; but as no signs of disease could be detected in the birds outside the park, it could not very well have been an epidemic.

Now since all these methods, which, like the little spasmodic attempts to kill the cats in some of the parks, are practised in secrecy and fear lest the public should hear of them, have so far proved ineffectual, would it not be best to take a lesson from Nature, and restore some of the natural checks which we have taken away? Let us in the first place make use of the park sparrows in establis.h.i.+ng colonies of as many new or greatly diminished species as possible; and when we have done this, let us further introduce, in moderate numbers, such species as prey on small birds and their eggs and young--peregrine falcon, kestrel, sparrow-hawk, owl, crow, daw, magpie, and jay.

However successful we may be in adding to the number of our songsters, the sparrow will always be more numerous than all the other species together, and on account of his abundance he will be more preyed upon; furthermore, his big, conspicuous, slovenly nests will be more subject to attack than the nests of other species. It has been shown that millions of sparrows are yearly destroyed by cats in London; yet so quickly are they snapped up by their subtle enemy that we really see nothing or very little indeed of the process. The young birds flutter out of their nests and drop lightly down, only to vanish like snowflakes that fall on the water. Here we see that even in London, with but two species to act upon, Nature, left a little to herself, has succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng something like that balance of forces and harmony which exists everywhere in her own dominion. Would it not be better to leave it to Nature in the parks, too, to do her own killing in her own swift and secret manner? In streets and houses cats are of the greatest service, doing for us, and unseen by us, that which we could not effectually do for ourselves: in the parks their presence is injurious; there we rather want Nature's feathered executioners, who are among her most beautiful and interesting creatures.

How effective and salutary her methods are, how beautiful in their results, may be seen in such places as have been made sanctuaries for all wild animals, innocent and rapacious. Even on the borders of London we have such places, and perhaps it would be hard anywhere in the rural districts to find a more perfect sanctuary in a small s.p.a.ce than that of Caen Wood, at Hampstead. Although at the side of the swarming Heath, it is really wild, since for long years it has been free from the landscape gardener with his pretty little conventions, and the gamekeeper and henwife with their persecutions and playing at Providence among the creatures. If it were possible for a man to climb to the top of one of its n.o.ble old trees--a tall cedar, beech, or elm, with a girth of sixteen to eighteen feet--he would look down and out upon London: leagues upon leagues of houses, stretching away to the southern horizon, with tall chimneys, towers, and spires innumerable appearing above the brooding cloud of smoke. But the wood itself seems not to have been touched by its sulphurous breath; within its green shade all is fresh as in any leafy retreat a hundred miles from town. And here the wild creatures find a refuge. Badgers--not one pair nor two, but a big colony--have their huge subterraneous peaceful village in the centre of the wood. The lodge-keeper's wife told me that one evening, seeing her dog, as she imagined, trotting from her across the lawn, she called to him and, angered at his disregard of her voice, ran after him for some distance among the trees, and only when she was about to lay her hands on him discovered that she was chasing a big badger. The badgers have for neighbours stoats and weasels, carrion crows, jays, and owls. Even in the daytime you will find the wood-owl dozing in the deep twilight of a holly-bush growing in the shade of a huge oak or elm. High up on the trees at least half a dozen pairs of carrion crows have their nests; and occasionally all the birds gather at one spot and fill the entire wood with their tremendous excited cries. A dozen of these birds, when they let themselves go, will create a greater uproar than a hundred cawing rooks.

Here, too, the rabbit keeps his place in spite of so many enemies; and to those named must be added the domestic cat. I myself have seen puss returning to the house carrying a half-grown young rabbit to her kittens.

The moorhen and wood-pigeon also flourish, and in a still greater degree the missel-thrush, throstle, and blackbird. In this wood I have counted forty-three breeding species; and not only is the variety great, but many of our best songsters, residents and migrants, are so numerous that at certain times in spring, when birds are most vocal, you may hear at this spot as fine a concert of sweet voices as in any wood in England.

Sanctuaries like that of Caen Wood the Metropolitan parks can never be.

Only in a few of the most favourably situated open s.p.a.ces on the borders of London could we have anything approaching to the richness and harmony seen in this perfect transcript of wild nature. But it should be our aim to have all the parks, even to the most central, as nearly like sanctuaries as such small isolated urban s.p.a.ces, inhabited by so limited a number of species, may be made.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DABCHICK'S FLOATING NEST: ST. JAMES'S PARK]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JENNINGS (JAMES): _Ornithologia; or, the Birds_; a poem in two parts, with an introduction to their Natural History and copious notes.

Second edition, 8vo. London, 1829.

TORRE (H. J.): 'A List of Birds found in Middles.e.x.' _The Naturalist_ (Neville Wood's), vol. iii. p. 420. 8vo. London, 1838.