CHAPTER III

A short general account of the London crows—The magpie—The jay—London ravens—The Enfield ravens—The Hyde Park ravens—The Tower ravens—The carrion crow, rook, and jackdaw.

Thereare not many crows in London; the number of the birds that are left are indeed few, and, if we exclude the magpie and jay, there are only three species. But the magpie and jay cannot be left out altogether, when we find both species still existing at a distance of six and a half to seven miles from Charing Cross. The magpie is all but lost; at the present time there are no more than four birds inhabiting inner London, doubtless escaped from captivity, and afraid to leave the parks in which they found refuge—those islands of verdure in the midst of a sea, or desert, of houses. One bird, the survivor of a pair, has his home in St. James’s Park, and is the most interesting figure in that hauntof birds; a spirited creature, a great hater and persecutor of the carrion crows when they come. The other three consort together in Regent’s Park; once or twice they have built a nest, but failed to hatch their eggs. Probably all three are females. When, some time ago, the ‘Son of the Marshes’ wrote that the magpie had been extirpated in his own county of Surrey, and that to see it he should have to visit the London parks, he made too much of these escaped birds, which may be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Yet we know that the pie was formerly—even in thiscentury—quite common in London. Yarrell, in his ‘British Birds,’ relates that he once saw twenty-three together in Kensington Gardens. In these gardens they bred, probably for the last time, in 1856. Nor, so far as I know, do any magpies survive in the woods and thickets on the outskirts of the metropolis, except at two spots in the south-west district. The fate of the last pair at Hampstead has been related by Harting, in Lobley’s ‘Hampstead Hill’ (London, 1889). For several years this pair had their nest in an unclimbable tree at the Grove; at length, one of the pair was shot by a local bird-stuffer, after which the surviving bird twice found and returned with a new mate; but one by one all were killed by the same miscreant.

THE LAST RAVENIt would be easy enough for any person to purchase a few magpies in the market and liberate them in St. James’s and Regent’s Parks, and other suitable places, where, if undisturbed, they would certainly breed; but I fear that it would not be an advisable thing to do at present, on account of the very strong prejudice which exists against this handsome bird. Thus, at St. James’s Park the one surviving bird is ‘one too many,’ according to the keepers. ‘One forsorrow’ is an old saying. He is, they say, a robber and a teaser, dangerous to the ornamental water-fowl in the breeding season, a great persecutor of the wood-pigeons, and in summer never happy unless he has a pigeon’s egg in his beak. It strikes one forcibly that this is not a faithful portrait—that the magpie has been painted all black, instead of black and white as nature made him. At all events, we know that during the first two or three decades of the present century there was an abundant and varied wild bird life in the royal parks, and that at the same time the magpies were more numerous there than they are now known to be in any forest or wild place in England.The jay does not inhabit any of the inner parks and open spaces; nor is there any evidence of its having been a resident London species at any time. But it is found in the most rural parts and in the wooded outskirts of the metropolis. Its haunts will be mentioned in the chapters descriptive of the parks and open spaces.There is no strong prejudice against the jay among the park keepers, and I am glad to know that, in two or three parks, attempts will be made shortly to introduce this most beautifulof British birds. It is to be hoped that when we have got him his occasional small peccadilloes will not be made too much of.The raven has long been lost to London, but not so long as might be imagined when we consider how nearly extinct this noble species, as an inland breeder, now is in all the southern half, and very nearly all the northern half, of England. It is not my intention in this book to go much into the past history of London bird life, but I make an exception of the raven on account of an extreme partiality for that most human-like of feathered creatures. Down to about the middle of last century, perhaps later, the raven was a common London bird. He was, after the kite had vanished, the principal feathered scavenger, and it was said that a London raven could easily be distinguished from a country bird by his dulled or dusty-looking plumage, the result of his food-seeking operations in dust and ash heaps. A little way out of the metropolis he lingered on, as a breeding species, down to within a little more than half a century ago; the last pair, so far as I can discover, bred at Enfield down to about 1845.The original ‘raven tree’ on which this pair had nested for many years was cut down, after which the birds built a nest in a clump of seven elm-trees, known locally as the ‘seven sisters,’ five of which are still standing.

THE LAST RAVEN

It would be easy enough for any person to purchase a few magpies in the market and liberate them in St. James’s and Regent’s Parks, and other suitable places, where, if undisturbed, they would certainly breed; but I fear that it would not be an advisable thing to do at present, on account of the very strong prejudice which exists against this handsome bird. Thus, at St. James’s Park the one surviving bird is ‘one too many,’ according to the keepers. ‘One forsorrow’ is an old saying. He is, they say, a robber and a teaser, dangerous to the ornamental water-fowl in the breeding season, a great persecutor of the wood-pigeons, and in summer never happy unless he has a pigeon’s egg in his beak. It strikes one forcibly that this is not a faithful portrait—that the magpie has been painted all black, instead of black and white as nature made him. At all events, we know that during the first two or three decades of the present century there was an abundant and varied wild bird life in the royal parks, and that at the same time the magpies were more numerous there than they are now known to be in any forest or wild place in England.

The jay does not inhabit any of the inner parks and open spaces; nor is there any evidence of its having been a resident London species at any time. But it is found in the most rural parts and in the wooded outskirts of the metropolis. Its haunts will be mentioned in the chapters descriptive of the parks and open spaces.

There is no strong prejudice against the jay among the park keepers, and I am glad to know that, in two or three parks, attempts will be made shortly to introduce this most beautifulof British birds. It is to be hoped that when we have got him his occasional small peccadilloes will not be made too much of.

The raven has long been lost to London, but not so long as might be imagined when we consider how nearly extinct this noble species, as an inland breeder, now is in all the southern half, and very nearly all the northern half, of England. It is not my intention in this book to go much into the past history of London bird life, but I make an exception of the raven on account of an extreme partiality for that most human-like of feathered creatures. Down to about the middle of last century, perhaps later, the raven was a common London bird. He was, after the kite had vanished, the principal feathered scavenger, and it was said that a London raven could easily be distinguished from a country bird by his dulled or dusty-looking plumage, the result of his food-seeking operations in dust and ash heaps. A little way out of the metropolis he lingered on, as a breeding species, down to within a little more than half a century ago; the last pair, so far as I can discover, bred at Enfield down to about 1845.The original ‘raven tree’ on which this pair had nested for many years was cut down, after which the birds built a nest in a clump of seven elm-trees, known locally as the ‘seven sisters,’ five of which are still standing.

‘THE SEVEN SISTERS’

In London the last pair had ceased to breed about twenty years earlier; and of a hundred histories of ‘last ravens’ to be met with in all parts of the country, that of these London birds is by no means the least interesting, and is worth relating again.

Down to about 1826 this pair bred annually on one of the large elms in Hyde Park, until it entered into the head of one of the park keepers to pull down the nest containing young birds. The name and subsequent history of this injurious wretch have not been handed down. Doubtless he has long gone to his account; and let us add the pious wish that his soul, along with the souls of all those who were wanton destroyers of man’s feathered fellow-creatures, is now being driven, like a snow-flake, round and round the icy pole in that everlasting whirlwind described by Courthope in his ‘Paradise of Birds.’

The old ravens, deprived of their young, forsook the park. One of the young birds wassuccessfully reared by the keeper; and the story of this raven was long afterwards related by Jesse. He was allowed the fullest liberty, and as he passed a good deal of his time in the vicinity of the Row, he came to be very well known to all those who were accustomed to walk in Hyde Park at that time. He was fond of the society of the men then engaged in the construction of Rennie’s bridge over the Serpentine, and the workmen made a pet of him. His favourite amusement was to sidle cunningly up to some passer-by or idler, and, watching his chance, give him or her a sharp dig on the ankle with his beak. One day a fashionably dressed lady was walking near the bridge, when all at once catching sight of the bird at her feet, on feeling its sharp beak prodding her heel, she screamed and gave a great start, and in starting dropped a valuable gold bracelet from her wrist. No sooner did the jewel touch the ground than the raven snatched it up in his beak and flew away with it into Kensington Gardens, where it was searched for, but never found. It was believed that he made use of one of the hollow trees in the gardens as a hiding place for plunder of this kind. At lengththe raven disappeared—some one had stolen him; but after an absence of several weeks he reappeared in the park with clipped wings. His disposition, too, had suffered a change: he moped a good deal, and finally one morning was found dead in the Serpentine. It was surmised that he had drowned himself from grief at having been deprived of the power of flight.

A few ravens have since visited London. In 1850 a keeper in Regent’s Park observed two of these birds engaged in a savage fight, which ended in the death of one of the combatants.

In March 1890 a solitary raven appeared in Kensington Gardens, and remained there for several weeks. A keeper informed me that it was captured and taken away. If this unfortunate raven had known his London better, he would not have chosen a royal park for a residence.

Was this Kensington raven, it has been asked, a wild bird, or a strayed pet, or an escaped captive? I believe the following incident will throw some light on the question.

For many years past two or three ravens have usually been kept at the Tower of London. About seven years ago, as near as I can makeout, there were two birds, male and female, and they paired and set to work building a nest on a tree. By and by, for some unknown reason, they demolished the nest they had made and started building a new one in another place. This nest also failed to satisfy them and was pulled to pieces like the first, and another begun; and finally, after half a dozen such attempts, the cock bird, who was a strong flyer, abandoned the task altogether and took to roaming about London, possibly in search of a new mate with a better knowledge of nest-building. It was his habit to mount up to a considerable height in the air, and soar about above the Tower, then to fly away to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he would perch on the cross above the dome and survey the raree-show beneath. Then he would wing his way to the docks, or in some other direction; and day by day his wanderings over London were extended, until the owner or owners of the bird were warned that if his wings were not clipped he would, soon or late, be lost.

But when it was at last resolved to cut his wings he refused to be caught. He had grown shy and suspicious, and although he came forfood and to roost on one of the turrets every evening, he would not allow any person to come too near him. After some weeks of this semi-independent life he finally disappeared, having, as I believe, met his end in Kensington Gardens.

His old mate ‘Jenny,’ as she is named, still lives at the Tower. I hear she has just been provided with a new mate.

Three other crows remain—the carrion crow, rook, and jackdaw, all black but comely, although not beautiful nor elegant, like the bright vari-coloured jay and the black and white pie. Unfortunately they are a small remnant, and we are threatened with the near loss of one, if not of all. The first-named of this corvine trio is now the largest and most important wild bird that has been left to us; if any as big or bigger appear, they are but casual visitors—a chance cormorant in severe weather, and the heron, that sometimes comes by night to the ornamental waters in the parks in search of fish, to vanish again, grey and ghostlike in the grey dawn.

It is curious to find that the big, loud-voiced, hated carrion crow—so conspicuous and aggressivea bird—has a firmer hold on life in the metropolis than his two relations, the rook and daw; for these two are sociable in habits and inclined to be domestic, and are everywhere inhabitants of towns. Or, rather, it would be strange but for the fact that the crow is less generally disliked in London than out of it.

Now, although these our three surviving crows are being left far behind in actual numbers by some other species that have only recently established themselves among us, and are moreover decreasing, and may be wholly lost at no distant date, they have been so long connected with London, and historically, as well as on account of their high intelligence and interesting habits, are so much more to us than the birds of other families, that I am tempted to write at considerable length about them, devoting a separate chapter to each species. I also cherish the hope that their threatened loss may yet be prevented; doubtless every Londoner will agree that it would be indeed a pity to lose these old residents.

It is a fact, although perhaps not a quite familiar one, that those who reside in the metropolis are more interested in and have a kindlierfeeling for their wild birds than is the case in the rural districts. The reason is not far to seek: the poorer we are the more do we prize our small belongings. A wind-fluttered green leaf, a sweet-smelling red rose, a thrush in song, is naturally more to a Londoner than to the dweller in mid-Surrey, or Kent, or Devon.

The crow in London—Persecuted in the royal parks—Degradation of Hyde Park—Ducks in the Serpentine: how they are thinned—Shooting a chicken with a revolver—Habits of the Hyde Park mallard—Anecdotes—Number of London crows—The crow a long-lived bird; a bread-eater—Anecdote—Seeks its food on the river—The crow as a pet—Anecdotes.

Thecarrion crow has probably always been an inhabitant of the central parks; at all events it is well known that for a long time past a pair bred annually in the trees on the north side of the Serpentine, down to within the last three years. As these birds took toll of the ducks’ eggs and ducklings when they had a nest full of ravenous young to feed, it was resolved that they should no longer be tolerated; their nests were ordered to be pulled down and the old birds shot whenever an opportunity offered. Now it is not the Hyde Park crows alone that will suffer if this policy be adhered to, but the London crows generally will be in danger ofextermination, for the birds are constantly passing and repassing across London, visiting all the parks where there are large trees, on their way to and from their various feeding-grounds. Hyde Park with Kensington Gardens is one of their favourite stopping places; one or more pairs may be seen there on most mornings, frequently at noon again on their return to Richmond, Kew, and Syon Park, and to the northern heights of London. On the morning of October 10, 1896, I saw eight carrion crows, in pairs, perched at a considerable distance apart on the elm-tops near the palace in Kensington Gardens. After calling for some time on the trees, they began to pursue and buffet one another with violence, making the whole place in the meantime resound with their powerful, harsh, grating cries. Their mock battle over, they rose to a considerable height in the air and went away towards Hammersmith. It seemed to me a marvellous thing that I had witnessed such a scene in such a place. But it is not necessary to see a number of carrion crows together to feel impressed with the appearance of the bird. There are few finer sights in the wild bird life of London than oneof these visitors to the park on any autumn or winter morning, when he will allow you to come quite near to the leafless tree on which he is perched, to stand still and admire his massive raven-like beak and intense black plumage glossed with metallic green, as he sits flirting his wings and tail, swelling his throat to the size of a duck’s egg, as, at intervals, he pours out a succession of raucous caws—the cry of a true savage, and the crow’s ‘voice of care,’ as Chaucer called it.

CARRION CROW’S NEST

The crow is, in fact, the grandest wild bird left to us in the metropolis; and after corresponding and conversing with a large number of persons on the subject, I find that in London others—most persons, I believe—admire him as much as I do, and are just as anxious that he should be preserved. It may be mentioned here that in two or three of the County Council’s parks the superintendents protect and take pride in their crows. Why, then, should these few birds, which Londoners value, be destroyed in the royal parks for fear of the loss of a few ducklings out of the hundreds that are annually hatched and reared?

The ducks in the Serpentine are verynumerous; many bucketfuls of food—meal and grain—are given to them every day when they congregate at the boat-house, and they get besides large quantities of broken bread cast to them by the public; all day long, and every day when it is not raining, there is a continual procession of men, women, and children bringing food for the birds. Is it permissible to ask for whose advantage this large number of ducks is reared and fattened for the table at so small a cost? Hyde Park is maintained by the nation, and presumably for the nation; it is a national as well as a royal park; is it not extraordinary that so noble a possession, the largest and most beautiful open space in the capital of the British empire, the chief city of the world, should be degraded to something like a poultry farm, or at all events a duck-breeding establishment, and that in order to get as much profit as possible out of the ducks, one of the chief ornaments of the park, the one representative of noble wild bird life that has survived until now in London, should be sacrificed?

Let us by all means have ducks, and many of them; they are gregarious by nature and look well in flocks, and are a source of innocentpleasure to numberless visitors to the parks, especially to children and nursemaids; but let us not have ducks only—a great multitude of ducks, to the exclusion of other wilder and nobler birds.

Personally, I am very fond of these ducks, although I have never had one on my table, and believe that I am as well able to appreciate their beauty and feel an interest in their habits as any of the gentlemen in authority who have decreed that the carrion crow shall go the way of the raven in Hyde Park. I love them because they are not the ducks that have been made lazy and fat, with all their fine faculties dulled, by long domestication. They are the wild duck, or mallard, introduced many years ago into the Serpentine. Doubtless they have some domestic taint in them, since the young birds reared each season exhibit a very considerable variation in colour and markings. Those that vary in colour are weeded out each winter, and the original type is in this way preserved; but not strictly preserved, as the weeding-out process is carelessly—I had almost said stupidly—performed.

The thinning takes place in December, and atthat season people who live in the vicinity of the park are startled each morning by the sound of firing, as at the covert side. The sub-ranger and his friends and underlings are enjoying their big annual shoot. And there is no reason why they should not have this sport, if it pleases them, and if by this means the object sought could be obtained. But it is not obtained, as anyone may see for himself; and it also seems a trifle ridiculous that any man can find sport in shooting birds accustomed to walk about among people’s legs and feed out of little children’s hands.

Once upon a time, in a distant country, I came with a companion to a small farmhouse. We were very much in want of a meal, but no person was about, and the larder was empty, and so we determined to kill and broil a chicken for ourselves. On our making certain chuckling noises, which domestic birds understand, a number of fowls scattered about near the place rushed up to us, expecting to be fed. We made choice of a very tall cockerel for our breakfast; so tall was this young bird on his long, bright yellow stilt-like shanks that he towered head and neck above his fellows. My companion,who was an American, had a revolver in his pocket, and pulling it out he fired five shots at the bird at a distance of about six yards, but failed to hit it. He was preparing to reload his weapon, when, to expedite matters, I picked up a stick and knocked the chicken over, and in less than fifty minutes’ time we were picking his bones.

I doubt if the Hyde Park sportsmen will see anything very amusing in this story.

The mallard is an extremely handsome fowl, and it is pleasant to see such a bird in flocks, at home on the ornamental waters, and at the same time to learn that it is, in a sense, a wild bird, that in the keenness of its faculties, its power of flight, and nesting habits it differs greatly from its degenerate domestic relation. By day he will feed from any person’s hand; in the evening he returns to his ancient wary habit, and will not suffer a person to approach him. He is active by night, particularly in the autumn, flying about the park and gardens in small flocks and feeding on the grass. It is a curious and delightful experience to be alone on a damp autumn night in Kensington Gardens. One is surrounded by London; its dull continuousmurmur may be heard, and the glinting of distant lamps catches the eye through the trees; these fitful gleams and distant sounds but make the silence and darkness all the more deep and impressive. Suddenly the whistling of wings is heard, and the loud startled cry of a mallard, as the birds, vaguely seen, rush by overhead; the effect on the mind is wonderful—one has been transported as by a miracle into the midst of a wild and solitary nature.

Both by day and night there is much going to and fro between the Serpentine and the Round Pond, but each bird appears to be faithful to itshome, and those that have been reared on the Round Pond breed in its vicinity on the west side of the gardens. Where their eggs are deposited is known to few. Strange as it may seem, they nest in the trees, in holes in the trunks of the large elms, in many cases at a height of thirty feet or more from the ground. Some of the breeding-trees are known, of others the secret has been well kept by the birds. Not a few ducks breed in Holland Park, and find it an exceedingly difficult matter to get their broods into the gardens. More than once the strange spectacle of a duck leading its newly-hatchedyoung along the thronged pavements of Kensington High Street has been witnessed.

When the young have been hatched in a tree the parent bird takes them up in her beak and drops them one by one to the ground, and the fall does not appear to hurt them. Last year a duck bred in a tree broken off at the top near St. Gover’s Well, in the gardens. One morning she appeared with four ducklings, and leaving them near the pond went back to the tree and in time returned with a second lot of four. Still she was not satisfied, but continued to go back to the tree and to fly round and round it with a great clamour. A keeper who had been watching her movements sent for a man with a ladder to have the tree-top examined. The man found the broken stem hollow at the top, and by thrusting his arm down shoulder-deep was able to reach the bottom of the cavity with his hand. One duckling was found in it and rescued, and its mother made happy. That she had succeeded in getting all the others out of so deep and narrow a shaft seemed very astonishing.

An extraordinary incident relating to these Kensington ducks was told to me by one of thekeepers, who himself heard it by a very curious chance. One dark evening, after leaving the gardens, he got on to an omnibus near the Albert Hall to go to his home at Hammersmith. Two men who occupied the seat in front of him were talking about the gardens and the birds, and he listened. One of the men related that he once succeeded in taking a clutch of ducks’ eggs from the gardens. He put them under a hen at his home in Hammersmith, and nine ducklings were hatched. They were healthy and strong and grew up into nine as fine ducks as he had ever seen. Such fine birds were they that he was loth to kill or part with them, and before he had made up his mind what to do he lost them in a very strange way. One morning he was in his back yard, where his birds were kept, when a crow appeared flying by at a considerable height in the air; instantly the ducks, with raised heads, ran together, then with a scream of terror sprang into the air and flew away, to be seen no more. Up till that moment they had never seen beyond the small back yard where they lived—it was their world—nor had any one of them ever attempted to use his wings.

Let us now return to the nobler bird, the subject of this chapter.

It would not, I imagine, be difficult for one who had the time to count the London crows; those I am accustomed to see number about twenty, and I should not be surprised to learn that as many as forty crows frequent inner London. But with the exception of two, or perhaps three pairs, they do not now breed in London, but have their nesting-haunts in woods west, north, and east of the metropolis. These breeders on the outskirts bring the young they succeed in rearing to the parks, from which they have themselves in some cases been expelled, and the tradition is thus kept up. Most of the birds appear to fly over London every day, paying long visits on their way to Regent’s Park, Holland Park, the central parks, and Battersea Park. As their movements are very regular it would be possible to mark their various routes on a map of the metropolis.

Mr. W. H. Tuck, writing to me about the carrion crow, says: ‘For many years, when living in Kensington, several pairs of crows going from N.E. to S.W. passed at daybreak over my house on their way to the Thamesbanks at Chelsea, and I could always time them within a minute or two.’ These birds come on their way from the northern heights to the river at Chelsea; the crows that breed in the neighbourhood of Syon Park and Richmond fly over the central parks to Westminster, and then follow the river down to its mouth.

The persistency with which the carrion crow keeps to his nesting-place may be seen in the case of a pair that have bred in private grounds at Hillfield, Hampstead, for at least sixty years. Nor is it impossible to believe that the same birds have occupied the site for this long period, the crow being a long-lived creature. The venerable author of ‘Festus,’ who also has the secret of long life, might have been thinking of this very pair when, more than half a century ago, he wrote his spirited lyric:—

The crow! the crow! the great black crow!He lives for a hundred years and mo’;He lives till he dies, and he dies as slowAs the morning mists down the hill that go.Go—go! you great black crow!But it’s fine to live and die like a great black crow.

Many persons might be inclined to think that it must be better for the crow to have hisnest a little way out of the hurly-burly, or at all events within easy reach of the country; for how, they might ask, can this large flesh-eating, voracious creature feed himself and rear a nest full of young with cormorant appetites in London?

Eliza Cook, whose now universally neglected works I admired as a boy, makes the bird say, in her ‘Song of the Crow’:—

I plunged my beak in the marbling cheek,I perched on the clammy brow;And a dainty treat was that fresh meatTo the greedy carrion crow.

The unknown author of ‘The Twa Corbies’ was a better naturalist as well as a better poet when he wrote—

I’ll pick out his bonny blue een.

But this relates to a time when the bodies of dead men, as well as of other large animals, were left lying promiscuously about; in these ultra-civilised days, when all dead things are quickly and decently interred, the greedy carrion crow has greatly modified his feeding habits. In London, as in most places, he takes whatever he finds on the table, and though not in principlea vegetarian, there is no doubt that he feeds largely on vegetable substances. Like the sparrow and other London birds, he has become with us a great bread-eater.

Mr. Kempshall, the superintendent at Clissold Park, relates a curious story of this civilised taste in the crow. The park for very many years was the home of a pair of these birds. Unfortunately, when this space was opened to the public, in 1889, the birds forsook it, and settled in some large trees on private grounds in the neighbourhood. These trees were cut down about three years ago, whereupon the birds returned to Clissold Park; but they have now again left it. One summer morning before the park was opened, when there were young crows in the nest, Mr. Kempshall observed one of the old birds laboriously making his way across the open ground towards the nesting-tree, laden with a strange-looking object. This was white and round and three times as big as an orange, and the crow, flying close to the ground, was obliged to alight at short intervals, whereupon he would drop his pack and take a rest. Curious to know what he was carrying, the superintendent made a sudden rush at thebird, at a moment when he had set his burden down, and succeeded in getting near enough to see that the white object was the round top part of a cottage loaf. But though the rush had been sudden and unexpected, and accompanied with a startling shout, the crow did not lose his head; striking his powerful beak, orplungingit, as Eliza Cook would have said, into the mass, he flopped up and struggled resolutely on until he reached the nest, to be boisterously welcomed by his hungry family. They had a big meal, but perhaps grumbled a little at so much bread without any ghee.

Probably the London crows get most of their food from the river. Very early every morning, as we have seen, they wing their way to the Thames, and at all hours of the day, when not engaged in breeding, crows may be seen travelling up and down the river, usually in couples, from Barnes and Mortlake and higher up, down to the sea. They search the mud at low tide for dead fishes, garbage, bread, and vegetable matter left by the water. Even when the tide is at its full the birds are still able to pick up something to eat, as they have borrowed the gull’s habit of dropping upon the water to pickup any floating object which may form part of their exceedingly varied dietary. It is amusing to see the carrion crow fishing up his dinner in this way, for he does not venture to fold his wings like the gull and examine and take up the morsel at leisure; he drops upon the water rather awkwardly, wetting his legs and belly, but keeps working his wings until he has secured the floating object, then rises heavily with it in his beak. Another curious habit of some London crows in the south-west district, is to alight, dove-like, on the roofs and chimney-stacks of tall houses.

In an article on this bird which appeared in the ‘Fortnightly Review’ for May 1895, I wrote: ‘It sometimes greatly adds to our knowledge of any wild creature to see it tamed—not confined in any way, nor with its wings clipped, but free to exercise all its faculties and to come and go at will. Some species in this condition are very much more companionable than others, and probably none so readily fall into the domestic life as the various members of the crow family; for they are more intelligent and adaptive, and nearer to the mammalians in their mental character than most birds. It is therefore curiousto find that the subject of this paper appears to be little known as a domestic bird, or pet. A caged crow, being next door, so to speak, to a dead and stuffed crow, does not interest me. Yet the crow strikes one as a bird with great possibilities as a pet: one would like to observe him freely associating with the larger unfeathered crows that have a different language, to learn by what means he communicates with them, to sound his depths of amusing devilry, and note the modulations of his voice; for he, too, like other corvines, is loquacious on occasions, and much given to soliloquy. He is also a musician, a fact which is referred to by Æsop, Yarrell, and other authorities, but they have given us no proper description of his song. A friend tells me that he once kept a crow which did not prove a very interesting pet. This was not strange in the circumstances. The bird was an old one, just knocked down with a charge of shot, when he was handed over in a dazed condition to my informant. He recovered from his wounds, but was always a very sedate bird. He had the run of a big old country house, and was one day observed in a crouching attitude pressed tightly into the angle formed by thewall and floor. He had discovered that the place was infested by mice, and was watching a crevice. The instant that a mouse put out a head the crow had him in his beak, and would kill him by striking him with lightning rapidity two or three times on the floor, then swallow him. From that time mouse-catching was this bird’s sole occupation and amusement, and he went about the house in the silent and stealthy manner of a cat.

‘I am anxious to get the history of a tame crow that never had his wing-feathers clipped, and did not begin the domestic life as an old bird with several pellets of lead in his body.’

Curiously enough, not long after this article appeared another bird-lover in London was asking the same question in another journal. This was Mr. Mandeville B. Phillips, of South Norwood, then private secretary to the late Archbishop of Canterbury. By accident he had become possessed of a carrion crow, sold to him as a young raven taken from a nest at Ely. This bird made so interesting a pet that its owner became desirous of hearing the experiences of others who had kept carrion crows. Mr. Phillips, in kindly giving me the history ofhis bird, says that at different times he has kept ravens, daws, jays, and magpies, but has never had so delightful a bird friend as the crow. It was a revelation to him to find what an interesting pet this species made. No other bird he had owned approached him in cleverness and in multiplicity of tricks and devices: he could give the cleverest jackdaw points and win easily. If his bird was an average specimen of the race, he wondered that the crow is not more popular as a pet. This bird was fond of his liberty, but would always come to his master when called, and roosted every night in an outhouse. Like the tame raven, and also like human beings of a primitive order of mind, he was excessively fond of practical jokes, and whenever he found the dog or cat asleep he would steal quietly up and administer a severe prod on the tail with his powerful beak. He would also fly into the kitchen when he saw the window open, to steal the spoons; but his chief delight was in a box of matches, which he would carry off to pick to pieces and scatter the matches all over the place. He was extremely jealous of a tame raven and a jackdaw that shared the house and garden with him, andwhich he chose to regard as rivals; but this was his only unhappiness. The appearance of his master dressed in ‘blazers’ always greatly affected him. It would, indeed, throw him into such a frenzy of terror that Mr. Phillips became careful not to exhibit himself in such bizarre raiment in the garden. My informant concludes, that he is not ashamed to say that he shed a few tears at the loss of this bird.

I may add that I received a large number of letters in answer to my article on the carrion crow, but none of my correspondents in this country had any knowledge of the bird as a pet. In several letters received from America—the States and Canada—long histories of the common crow of that region as a pet bird were sent to me.

Rarity of the daw in London—Pigeons and daws compared—Æsthetic value of the daw as a cathedral bird—Kensington Palace daws; their disposition and habits—Friendship with rooks—Wandering daws at Clissold Park—Solitary daws—Mr. Mark Melford’s birds—Rescue of a hundred daws—The strange history of an egg-stealing daw—White daws—White ravens—Willughby’s speculations—A suggestion.

Itis somewhat curious to find that the jackdaw is an extremely rare bird in London—that, in fact, with the exception of a small colony at one spot, he is almost non-existent. At Richmond Park, where pheasants (and the gamekeeper’s traditions) are preserved, he was sometimes shot in the breeding season; but in the metropolis, so far as I know, he has never been persecuted. Yet there are few birds, certainly no member of the crow family, seemingly so well adapted to a London life as this species. Throughout the kingdom he is a familiar town bird; in one English cathedral over a hundred pairs havetheir nests; and in that city and in many other towns the birds are accustomed to come to the gardens and window-sills, to be fed on scraps by their human neighbours and friends.

PIGEONS AT THE LAW COURTS

While the daw has diminished with us, and is near to vanishing, the common pigeon—the domestic variety of the blue rock—has increased excessively in recent years. Large colonies of these birds inhabit the Temple Gardens, the Law Courts, St. Paul’s, the Museum, and Westminster Palace, and many smaller settlements exist all over the metropolis. Now, a flock or cloud of parti-coloured pigeons rushing up and wheeling about the roofs or fronts of these imposing structures forms a very pretty sight; but the daw toying with the wind, that lifts and blows him hither and thither, is a much more engaging spectacle, and in London we miss him greatly.

I have often thought that it was due to the presence of the daw that I was ever able to get an adequate or satisfactory idea of the beauty and grandeur of some of our finest buildings. Watching the bird in his aërial evolutions, now suspended motionless, or rising and falling, then with half-closed wings precipitating himself downwards, as if demented, through vastdistances, only to mount again with an exulting cry, to soar beyond the highest tower or pinnacle, and seem at that vast height no bigger than a swift in size—watching him thus, an image of the structure over and around which he disported himself so gloriously has been formed—its vastness, stability, and perfect proportions—and has remained thereafter a vivid picture in my mind. How much would be lost to the sculptured west front of Wells Cathedral, the soaring spire of Salisbury, the noble roof and towers of York Minster and of Canterbury, if the jackdaws were not there! I know that, compared with the images I retain of many daw-haunted cathedrals and castles in the provinces, those of the cathedrals and other great buildings in London have in my mind a somewhat dim and blurred appearance. It is a pity that, before consenting to rebuild St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren did not make the perpetual maintenance of a colony of jackdaws a condition. And if he had bargained with posterity for a pair or two of peregrine falcons and kestrels, his glory at the present time would have been greater.

There are, I believe, about sixteen hundred churches in London; probably not more thanthree are now tenanted by the ‘ecclesiastical daw.’

On the borders of London—at Hampstead, Greenwich, Dulwich, Richmond, and other points—daws in limited numbers are to be met with; in London proper, or inner London, there are no resident or breeding daws except the small colony of about twenty-four birds at Kensington Palace. Most of these breed in the hollow elms in Kensington Gardens; others in trees in Holland Park. There is something curious about this small isolated colony: the birds are far less loquacious and more sedate in manner than daws are wont to be. At almost any hour of the day they may be seen sitting quietly on the higher branches of the tall trees, silent and spiritless. The wind blows, and they rise not to play with it; the graceful spire of St. Mary Abbott’s springs high above the garden trees and palace and neighbouring buildings, but it does not attract them. Occasionally, in winter, when the morning sun shines bright and melts the mist, they experience a sudden return of the old frolicsome mood, and at such moments are capable of a very fine display, rushing over and among the tall elms in a black train, yelpinglike a pack of aërial hounds in hot pursuit of some invisible quarry.

A still greater excitement is exhibited by these somewhat depressed and sedentary Kensington birds on the appearance of a flight of rooks; for rooks, sometimes in considerable numbers, do occasionally visit or pass over London, and keep, when travelling east or west, to the wide green way of the central parks. Now there are few more impressive spectacles in bird life in this country than the approach of a large company of rooks; their black forms, that loom so large as they successively appear, follow each other with slow deliberate motion at long intervals, moving as in a funeral procession, with appropriate solemn noises, which may be heard when they are still at a great distance. They are chanting something that corresponds in the corvine world to our Dead March in ‘Saul.’ The coming sound has a magical effect on the daws; their answering cries ring out loud and sharp, and hurriedly mounting to a considerable height in the air, they go out to meet the processionists, to mix with and accompany them a distance on the journey. It is to me a wonderful sight—more wonderful here in KensingtonGardens, which have long been rookless, than in any country place, and has reminded me of the meeting of two savage tribes or families, living far apart but cherishing an ancient tradition of kinship and amity, who, after a long interval, perhaps of years, when at last they come in sight of each other’s faces rush together, bursting into loud shouts of greeting and welcome. And one is really inclined to believe at times that some such traditional alliance and feeling of friendship exists between these two most social and human-like of the crow family.

Besides this small remnant of birds native to London, flocks of jackdaws from outside occasionally appear when migrating or in search of new quarters. One morning, not long ago, a flock of fifteen came down at Clissold Park. They settled on the dovecote, and amused themselves in a characteristic way by hunting the pigeons out of their boxes; then, having cleared the place, they remained contentedly for an hour or two, dozing, preening their feathers, and conversing together in low tones. The bird-loving superintendent’s heart was filled with joy at the acquisition of so interesting a colony; but his rejoicing was premature, the loud calland invitation to fly was at last sounded, and hastily responded to—We have not come to stay—we are off—good-bye—so-long—farewell—and forthwith they rose up and flew away, probably in search of fresher woods and less trodden pastures than those of Clissold Park.

There are also to be met with in London a few solitary vagrant daws which in most cases are probably birds escaped from captivity. Close to my home a daw of this description appears every morning at the house of a friend and demands his breakfast with loud taps on the window-pane. The generous treatment he has received has caused him to abandon his first suspicious attitude; he now flies boldly into the house and explores the rooms, and is specially interested in the objects on the dressing-table. Articles of jewellery are carefully put out of sight when he makes a call.

My friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Melford, of Fulham, are probably responsible for the existence in London of a good number of wandering solitary jackdaws. They cherish a wonderful admiration and affection towards all the members of the crow family, and have had numberless daws, jays, and pies as pets, or ratheras guests, since their birds are always free to fly about the house and go and come at pleasure. But their special favourite is the daw, which they regard as far more intelligent, interesting, and companionable than any other animal, not excepting the dog. On one occasion Mr. Melford saw an advertisement of a hundred daws to be sold for trap-shooting, and to save them from so miserable a fate he at once purchased the lot and took them home. They were in a miserable half-starved condition, and to give them a better chance of survival, before freeing them he placed them in an outhouse in his garden with a wire-netting across the doorway, and there he fed and tended them until they were well and strong, and then gave them their liberty. But they did not at once take advantage of it; grown used to the place and the kindly faces of their protectors, they remained and were like tame birds about the house; but later, a few at a time, at long intervals, they went away and back to their wild independent life.

Of the many stories of their pet daws which they have told me, I will give one of a bird which was a particular favourite of Mrs. Melford’s.His invariable habit was, on returning from an expedition abroad, to fly straight into the house in search of her, and, sitting on her head, to express his affection and delight at rejoining her by passing his beak through her hair.

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