CHAPTER IX

FEEDING THE GULLS IN ST. JAMES’S PARK

Some of the birds, bolder or more intelligentthan their fellows, would actually take the sprats from the hand.

A very few days before writing this chapter end, on January 30, 1898, I passed by the water and saw the gulls there, where indeed they have spent most of the daylight hours since the first week in October. It was a rough wild morning; the hurrying masses of dark cloud cast a gloom below that was like twilight; and though there was no mist the trees and buildings surrounding the park appeared vague and distant. The water, too, looked strange in its intense blackness, which was not hidden by the silver-grey light on the surface, for the surface was everywhere rent and broken by the wind, showing the blackness beneath. Some of the gulls—about 150 I thought—were on the water together in a close flock, tailing off to a point, all with their red beaks pointing one way to the gale. Seeing them thus, sitting high as their manner is, tossed up and down with the tumbling water, yet every bird keeping his place in the company, their whiteness and buoyancy in that dark setting was quite wonderful. It was a picture of black winter and beautiful wild bird life which would have had a rare attractioneven in the desert places of the earth; in London it could not be witnessed without feelings of surprise and gratitude.

We see in this punctual return of the gulls, bringing their young with them, that a new habit has been acquired, a tradition formed, which has given to London a new and exceedingly beautiful ornament, of more value than many works of art.

A general survey of the metropolitan parks—West London—Central parks, with Holland Park—A bird’s highway—Decrease of songsters—The thrush in Kensington Gardens—Suggestions—Owls in Kensington Gardens—Other West London open spaces—Ravenscourt Park as it was and as it is.

Our‘province’ of London is happily not entirely ‘covered with houses,’ and in each of its six large districts—West, North-west, North, East, South-east, and South-west—there are many hundreds of acres of green and tree-shaded spaces where the Londoner may find a moderate degree of refreshment. Unfortunately for large masses of the population, these spaces are very unequally distributed, being mostly situated on or close to the borderland, where town and country meet; consequently they are of less value to the dwellers in the central and densely peopled districts than to the inhabitants of the suburbs, who have pure air and ample healthy room without these public grounds.

Before going the round of the parks, to note in detail their present condition and possibilities, chiefly with reference to their wild bird life, it would be well to take a rapid survey of the metropolitan open spaces generally. To enable the reader the more closely to follow me in the survey, I have introduced a map of the County of London on a small scale, in which the whole of the thickly built-over portion appears uncoloured; the surrounding country coloured green; the open spaces, including cemeteries, deep green; the small spaces—squares, graves, churchyards, gardens, recreation grounds, &c., as dark dots; the suburban districts, not densely populated, where houses have gardens and grounds, pale green.

RAVENSCOURTPARKNow the white space is not really birdless, being everywhere inhabited by sparrows, and in parts by numerous and populous colonies of semi-wild pigeons, while a few birds of other species make their homes in London gardens. Shirley Hibbert, writing of London birds in 1865, says: ‘London is, indeed, far richer in birds than it deserves to be.’ He also says: ‘A few birds, however, appear to be specially adapted not merely for London as viewed fromwithout, but for Londonpar excellence, that is to say for the noisy, almost treeless City; with these for pioneers, nature invades the Stock Exchange, the Court of Aldermen, the Bank, and all the railway termini, as if to say,Shut us out if you can.’ But with the exception of these few peculiarly urban species we may take it that the Londonbirds get their food, breed, and live most of the time in the open spaces where there are trees and bushes. Even the starling, which breeds in buildings, must go to the parks to feed.It must also be borne in mind that birds that penetrate into London from the surrounding country—those that, like the carrion crow, live on the borders and fly into or across London every day, migrants in spring and autumn, young birds reared outside of London going about in search of a place to settle in, and wanderers generally—all fly to and alight on the green spaces only. These spaces form their camping grounds. As there is annually a very considerable influx of feathered strangers, we can see by a study of the map how much easier to penetrate and more attractive some portions of the metropolis are than others. It would simplify the matter still further if we were to look upon London as an inland sea, an archipelago, about fifty miles in circumference, containing a few very large islands, several of a smaller size, and numerous very small ones—a sea or lake with no well-defined shore-line, but mostly with wide borders which might be described as mixed land and water, with promontoriesor tongues of land here and there running into it. These promontories, also the chains of islands, form, in some cases, broad green thoroughfares along which the birds come; the sinuous band of the Thames also forms to some extent a thoroughfare.I believe it is a fact that in those parts of the suburbs that are well timbered, and where the houses have gardens and grounds, the bird population is actually greater (with fewer species) than in the country proper, even in places where birds are very abundant. In parts of Norwood, Sydenham, and Streatham, and the neighbourhoods of Dulwich, Greenwich, Lee, Highgate, and Hampstead, birds are extremely abundant. Going a little further afield, on one side of the metropolis we have Epping Forest, and on the opposite side of the metropolis several vast and well-wooded spaces abounding in bird life—Kew Gardens, the Queen’s private grounds, Old Deer Park, Syon and Richmond parks, Wimbledon, &c. From all these districts there is doubtless a considerable overflow of birds each season on to the adjacent country, and into London, and some of the large parks are well placed to attract these wanderers.In going into a more detailed account of the parks, it is not my intention to furnish anything like a formal or guide-book description, assigning a space to each, but, taking them as they come, singly, in groups and chains, to touch or dwell only on those points that chiefly concern us—their characters, comparative advantages, and their needs, with regard to bird life. Beginning with the central parks and other parks situated in the West district, we will then pass to the North-west and North districts, and so on until the circle of the metropolis has been completed.The central parks, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park, contain respectively 274, 360, 55, and 60 acres—in round numbers 750 acres. Add to this Holland Park, the enclosed meadow-like grounds adjoining Kensington Palace, Hyde Park Gardens, St. George’s burial-ground, and Buckingham Palace Gardens, and we get altogether a total of about nine hundred to one thousand acres of almost continuous green country, extending from High Street, Kensington, to Westminster. This very large area (for to the eyes of the flying bird it must appear as one) is favourably situatedto attract and support a very considerable amount of bird life. At its eastern extremity we see that it is close to the river, along which birds are apt to travel; while three miles and a half away, at its other end, it is again near the Thames, where the river makes a great bend near Hammersmith, and not very distant from the more or less green country about Acton.

RAVENSCOURTPARK

Now the white space is not really birdless, being everywhere inhabited by sparrows, and in parts by numerous and populous colonies of semi-wild pigeons, while a few birds of other species make their homes in London gardens. Shirley Hibbert, writing of London birds in 1865, says: ‘London is, indeed, far richer in birds than it deserves to be.’ He also says: ‘A few birds, however, appear to be specially adapted not merely for London as viewed fromwithout, but for Londonpar excellence, that is to say for the noisy, almost treeless City; with these for pioneers, nature invades the Stock Exchange, the Court of Aldermen, the Bank, and all the railway termini, as if to say,Shut us out if you can.’ But with the exception of these few peculiarly urban species we may take it that the Londonbirds get their food, breed, and live most of the time in the open spaces where there are trees and bushes. Even the starling, which breeds in buildings, must go to the parks to feed.

It must also be borne in mind that birds that penetrate into London from the surrounding country—those that, like the carrion crow, live on the borders and fly into or across London every day, migrants in spring and autumn, young birds reared outside of London going about in search of a place to settle in, and wanderers generally—all fly to and alight on the green spaces only. These spaces form their camping grounds. As there is annually a very considerable influx of feathered strangers, we can see by a study of the map how much easier to penetrate and more attractive some portions of the metropolis are than others. It would simplify the matter still further if we were to look upon London as an inland sea, an archipelago, about fifty miles in circumference, containing a few very large islands, several of a smaller size, and numerous very small ones—a sea or lake with no well-defined shore-line, but mostly with wide borders which might be described as mixed land and water, with promontoriesor tongues of land here and there running into it. These promontories, also the chains of islands, form, in some cases, broad green thoroughfares along which the birds come; the sinuous band of the Thames also forms to some extent a thoroughfare.

I believe it is a fact that in those parts of the suburbs that are well timbered, and where the houses have gardens and grounds, the bird population is actually greater (with fewer species) than in the country proper, even in places where birds are very abundant. In parts of Norwood, Sydenham, and Streatham, and the neighbourhoods of Dulwich, Greenwich, Lee, Highgate, and Hampstead, birds are extremely abundant. Going a little further afield, on one side of the metropolis we have Epping Forest, and on the opposite side of the metropolis several vast and well-wooded spaces abounding in bird life—Kew Gardens, the Queen’s private grounds, Old Deer Park, Syon and Richmond parks, Wimbledon, &c. From all these districts there is doubtless a considerable overflow of birds each season on to the adjacent country, and into London, and some of the large parks are well placed to attract these wanderers.

In going into a more detailed account of the parks, it is not my intention to furnish anything like a formal or guide-book description, assigning a space to each, but, taking them as they come, singly, in groups and chains, to touch or dwell only on those points that chiefly concern us—their characters, comparative advantages, and their needs, with regard to bird life. Beginning with the central parks and other parks situated in the West district, we will then pass to the North-west and North districts, and so on until the circle of the metropolis has been completed.

The central parks, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park, contain respectively 274, 360, 55, and 60 acres—in round numbers 750 acres. Add to this Holland Park, the enclosed meadow-like grounds adjoining Kensington Palace, Hyde Park Gardens, St. George’s burial-ground, and Buckingham Palace Gardens, and we get altogether a total of about nine hundred to one thousand acres of almost continuous green country, extending from High Street, Kensington, to Westminster. This very large area (for to the eyes of the flying bird it must appear as one) is favourably situatedto attract and support a very considerable amount of bird life. At its eastern extremity we see that it is close to the river, along which birds are apt to travel; while three miles and a half away, at its other end, it is again near the Thames, where the river makes a great bend near Hammersmith, and not very distant from the more or less green country about Acton.

Map of London

There is no doubt that a majority of the summer visitants and wanderers generally that appear in the central parks come through Holland Park, as they are usually first observed in the shrubberies and trees at Kensington Palace. Holland Park, owing to its privacy and fine old trees, is a favourite resort of wild birds, and is indeed a better sanctuary than any public park in London. From the palace shrubberies the new-comers creep in along the Flower Walk, the Serpentine, and finally by way of the Green Park to St. James’s Park. But they do not stay to breed, the place not being suitable for such a purpose. It is possible that a few find nesting-places in Buckingham Palace Gardens, and that others drift into Battersea Park.

Another proof that these parks—so sadly mismanaged from the bird-lover’s point of view—aresituated advantageously may be found in the fact that three of the species which have established colonies in London within the last few years (wood-pigeon, moorhen, and dabchick) first formed settlements here, and from this centre have spread over the entire metropolis, and now inhabit every park and open space where the conditions are suited to their requirements. These three needed no encouragement: the summer visitors do certainly need it, and at Battersea, and in some other parks less than one fourth the size of Hyde Park, they find it, and are occasionally able to rear their young. Even the old residents, the sedentary species once common in the central parks, find it hard to maintain their existence; they have died or are dying out. The missel-thrush, nuthatch, tree-creeper, oxeye, spotted woodpecker, and others vanished several years ago. The chaffinch was reduced to a single pair within the last few years; this pair lingered on for a year or a little over, then vanished. Last spring, 1897, a few chaffinches returned, and their welcome song was heard in Kensington Gardens until June. Not a greenfinch is to be seen, the commonest and most prolific garden bird in England,so abundant that scores, nay hundreds, may be bought any Sunday morning in the autumn at the bird-dealers’ shops in the slums of London, at about two pence per bird, or even less. The wrens a few years ago were reduced to a single pair, and had their nesting-place near the Albert Memorial; of the pair I believe one bird now remains. Two, perhaps three, pairs of hedge-sparrows inhabited Kensington Gardens during the summers of 1896 and 1897, but I do not think they succeeded in rearing any young. Nor did the one pair in St. James’s Park hatch any eggs. In 1897 a pair of spotted flycatchers bred in Kensington Gardens, and were the only representatives of the summer visitors of the passerine order in all the central parks.

The robin has been declining for several years; a decade ago its sudden little outburst of bright melody was a common autumn and winter sound in some parts of the park, and in nearly all parts of Kensington Gardens. This delightful sound became less and less each season, and unless something is done will before many years cease altogether. The blue and cole tits are also now a miserable remnant,and are restricted to the gardens, where they may be seen, four or five together, on the high elms or clinging to the pendent twigs of the birches. The blackbird and song-thrush have also fallen very low; I do not believe that there are more than two dozen of these common birds in all this area of seven hundred and fifty acres. A larger number could be found in one corner of Finsbury Park. Finsbury and Battersea could each send a dozen or two of songsters as a gift to the royal West-end parks, and not miss their music.

Of all these vanishing species the thrush is most to be regretted, on account of its beautiful, varied, and powerful voice, for in so noisy an atmosphere as that of London loudness is a very great merit; also because (in London) this bird sings very nearly all the year round. Even at the present time how much these few remaining birds are to us! From one to two decades ago it was possible on any calm mild day in winter to listen to half a dozen thrushes singing at various points in the gardens; now it is very rare to hear more than one, and during the exceedingly mild winter of 1896-7 I never heard more than two. Even these few birdsmake a wonderful difference. There is a miraculous quality in their voice. In the best of many poems which the Poet Laureate has addressed to this, his favourite bird, he sings:

Hearing thee first, who pines or grievesFor vernal smiles and showers!Thy voice is greener than the leaves,And fresher than the flowers.

Even here in mid-London the effect is the same, and a strange glory fills the old ruined and deserted place. But, alas! ’tis but an illusion, and is quickly gone. The tendency for many years past has been towards a greater artificiality. It saves trouble and makes for prettiness to cut down decaying trees. To take measures to prevent their fall, to drape them with ivy and make them beautiful in decay, would require some thought and care. It is not so long ago that Matthew Arnold composed his ‘Lines written in Kensington Gardens.’ It seems but the other day that he died; but how impossible it would be for anyone to-day, at this spot, to experience the feeling which inspired those matchless verses!

In this lone, open glade I lie,Screened by deep boughs on either hand;And at its end, to stay the eye,Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand!Birds here make song, each bird has his,Across the girdling city’s hum.How green under the boughs it is!How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!Sometimes a child will cross the gladeTo take his nurse his broken toy;Sometimes a thrush flit overheadDeep in her unknown day’s employ.Here at my feet what wonders pass,What endless, active life is here!What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!An air-stirr’d forest, fresh and clear.· · · · ·In the huge world, which roars hard by,Be others happy if they can!But in my helpless cradle IWas breathed on by the rural Pan.· · · · ·Calm soul of all things! Make it mineTo feel amid the city’s jar,That there abides a peace of thine,Man did not make, and cannot mar.The will to neither strive nor cry,The power to feel with others give!Calm, calm me more! nor let me dieBefore I have begun to live.

In this lone, open glade I lie,Screened by deep boughs on either hand;And at its end, to stay the eye,Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,Across the girdling city’s hum.How green under the boughs it is!How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the gladeTo take his nurse his broken toy;Sometimes a thrush flit overheadDeep in her unknown day’s employ.

Here at my feet what wonders pass,What endless, active life is here!What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!An air-stirr’d forest, fresh and clear.

· · · · ·

In the huge world, which roars hard by,Be others happy if they can!But in my helpless cradle IWas breathed on by the rural Pan.

· · · · ·

Calm soul of all things! Make it mineTo feel amid the city’s jar,That there abides a peace of thine,Man did not make, and cannot mar.

The will to neither strive nor cry,The power to feel with others give!Calm, calm me more! nor let me dieBefore I have begun to live.

In these vast gardens and parks, with large trees, shrubberies, wide green spaces, and lakes, there should be ample room for many scores of the delightful songsters that are now vanishing or have already vanished. And much might be done, at a very small cost, to restore these species, and to add others.

One of the first and most important steps to be taken in order to make the central parks a suitable home for wild birds, especially of the songsters, both resident and migratory, that nest on or near the ground, is the exclusion of the army of cats that hunt every night and all night long in them. This subject will be discussed more fully in another chapter.

Proper breeding-places are also greatly wanted—close shrubberies and rockeries such as we find at Battersea and Finsbury Parks. The existing shrubberies give no proper shelter. In planting them the bird’s need of privacy was not considered; the space allowed to them is too small, the species of plants that birdsprefer to roost and nest in are too few. It would make a wonderful difference if in place of so many unsuitable exotic shrubs (especially of the ugly, dreary-looking rhododendron) we had more of the always pleasing yew and holly; also furze and bramble; with other native plants to be found in any country hedge, massed together in that charming disorder which men as well as birds prefer, although the gardeners do not know it. There are several spots in Kensington Gardens where masses of evergreens would look well and would form welcome refuges to scores of shy songsters.

The more or less open ground north of the Flower Walk forms a deep well-sheltered hollow, where it would be easy to create a small pond with rushes and osiers growing in it, which would be very attractive to the birds. It would be easy to make a spot in every park in London where the sedge-warbler could breed.

Another very much needed improvement is an island in the Serpentine, which would serve to attract wild birds. The Serpentine is by a good deal the largest of the artificial lakes of inner London, yet with the exception of a couple of moorhens, and in winter a stray gull or twoseen flying over the water, it has no wild bird life, simply because there is no spot where a wild bird can breed. The existing small island, close to the north bank and the sub-rangers’ village, is used by some of the ducks to breed in. Something might be done to make this island more attractive to birds.

With one, perhaps two, exceptions, the comparatively large birds in the central parks have been so fully written about in former chapters that nothing more need be said of them in this place. It remains only to speak of the owls in Kensington Gardens.

It is certainly curious to find that in these gardens, where, as we have seen, birds are not encouraged, two such species as the jackdaw and owl are still resident, although long vanished from all their other old haunts in London. Of so important a bird as the owl I should have preferred to write at some length in one of the earlier chapters, but there was very little to say, owing to its rarity and secrecy. Nor could it be included in the chapters on recent colonists, since it is probable that it has always been an inhabitant of Kensington Gardens, although its existence there has not been noticed by thosewho have written on the wild bird life of London. It is unfortunate that we have no enjoyment of our owls: they hide from sight in the old hollow trees, and when they occasionally exercise their voices at night we are not there to hear them. Still, it is a pleasure to know that they are there, and probably always have been there. It is certain that during the past year both the brown and white owl have been living in the gardens, as the night-watchers hear the widely different vocal performances of both birds, and have also seen both species. Probably there are not more than two birds of each kind. Owls have the habit of driving away their young, and the stray white owls occasionally seen or heard in various parts of London may be young birds driven from the gardens. Some time ago the cries of a white owl were heard on several nights at Lambeth Palace, and it was thought that the bird had made its home in the tower of Lambeth Church, close by. In the autumn of 1896 a solitary white owl frequented the trees at Buckhurst Hill. An ornithological friend told me that he had seen an owl, probably the same bird, one evening flying over the Serpentine; and on inquiring of some of the park people, I wastold that they knew nothing about an owl, but that a cockatoo had mysteriously appeared every evening at dusk on one of the trees near the under-ranger’s lodge! After a few weeks it was seen no more. I fancy that this owl had been expelled from the gardens by its parents.

Directly in line with the central and Holland parks, about a mile and a quarter west of Holland Park, we have Ravenscourt Park—the last link of a broken chain. To the birds that come and go it occupies the position of a half-way house between the central parks and the country proper. Unhappily West Kensington, which lies between Holland and Ravenscourt Parks, is now quite covered with houses—a brand-new yet depressing wilderness of red brick, without squares, gardens, boulevards, or breathing spaces of any description whatsoever. Away on the right hand and on the left a few small green spaces are found—on one hand Shepherd’s Bush Green, and on the other Brook Green, St. Paul’s Schools ornamental grounds, and Hammersmith Cemetery and Cricket Ground. But from West Kensington it is far for children’s feet to a spot of green turf.

Ravenscourt, though not large (32 acres), is very beautiful. With Waterlow, Clissold, and Brockwell Parks it shares the distinction of being a real park, centuries old; and despite the new features, the gravelled paths, garden-beds, iron railings, &c., which had to be introduced when it was opened to the public, it retains much of its original park-like character. Its venerable elms, hornbeams, beeches, cedars, and hawthorns are a very noble possession. To my mind this indeed is the most beautiful park in London, or perhaps I should say that itwouldbe the most beautiful if the buildings round it were not so near and conspicuous. It may be that I am somewhat prejudiced in its favour. I knew it when it was private, and the old image is very vivid to memory; I lived for a long time beside it in sad days, when the constant sight of such a green and shady wilderness from my window was a great consolation. It was beautiful even in the cold, dark winter months when it was a waste of snow, and when, despite the bitter weather, the missel-thrush poured out its loud triumphant notes from the top of a tall elm. In its spring and summer aspect it had a wild grace and freshness, whichmade it unlike any other spot known to me in or near London. The old manor house inside the park was seldom occupied; no human figure was visible in the grounds; there were no paths, and all things grew untended. The grass was everywhere long, and in spring lit with colour of myriads of wild flowers; from dawn to dusk its shady places were full of the melody of birds; exquisitely beautiful in its dewy and flowery desolation, it was like a home of immemorial peace, the one remnant of unadulterated nature in the metropolis.

The alterations that had to be made in this park when the County Council took it over produced in me an unpleasant shock; and the birds were also seriously affected by the change. When the gates were thrown open, in 1888, and a noisy torrent of humanity poured in and spread itself over their sweet sanctuary, they fled in alarm, and for a time the park was almost birdless. The carrion crows, strange to say, stuck to their nesting-tree, and by-and-by some of the deserters began to return, to be followed by others, and now there is as much bird life as in the old days. It is probable, however, that some of the summer visitors haveceased to breed. At present we have the crow, wood-pigeon, missel-thrush, chaffinch, wren, hedge-sparrow, and in the summer the pied wagtail and spotted flycatcher and willow-wren.

CORMORANTS AT ST. JAMES’S PARK

Open spaces on the border of West London—The Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal Green Cemetery—North-west district—Paddington Recreation Ground, Kilburn Park, and adjoining open spaces—Regent’s Park described—Attractive to birds, but not safe—Hampstead Heath: its character and bird life—The ponds—A pair of moorhens—An improvement suggested—North London districts—Highgate Woods, Churchyard Bottom Wood, Waterlow Park, and Highgate Cemetery—Finsbury Park—A paradise of thrushes—Clissold Park and Abney Park Cemetery.

Beforeproceeding to give a brief account of the parks and open spaces of North-west and North London it is necessary to mention here a group of open spaces just within the West district, on its northern border, a mile and a half to two miles north of Ravenscourt Park. These are Wormwood Scrubs, Little Wormwood Scrubs, Old Oak Common, and Kensal Green Cemetery. As they contain altogether not far short of three hundred acres, and are in close proximity, they might in time have been thrown into one park. A large open space will besadly needed in that part of London before many years are passed, and it is certain that West London cannot go on burying its dead much longer at Kensal Green. But it is to be feared that the usual short-sighted policy will prevail with regard to these spaces, and a good deal of the space known as Old Oak Common has already been enclosed with barbed-wire fences, and it is now said that the commoners’ rights in this space have been extinguished.

Beyond these spaces are Acton and Harlesden—a district where town and country mix.

From Wormwood Scrubs to Regent’s Park it is three miles as the crow flies—three miles of houses inhabited by a working-class population, with no green spot except the Paddington Recreation Ground, which is small (25 acres), and of little or no use to the thousands of poor children in this vast parish, being too far from their homes.

Crossing the line dividing the West from the North-west district near Kensal Green, we find the following four not large open spaces in Kilburn—Kensal Rise, Brondesbury Park (private), Paddington Cemetery, and Kilburn or Queen’s Park (30 acres).

All this part of London is now being rapidly covered with houses, and the one beautiful open space, with large old trees in it, is Brondesbury Park. How sad to think that this fine park will probably be built over within the next few years, and that the only public open space left will be the Queen’s Park—a dreary patch of stiff clay, where the vegetation is stunted and looks tired of life. Even a few exceptionally dirty-looking sparrows that inhabit it appear to find it a depressing place.

Two miles east of this melancholy spot is Regent’s Park, which now forms one continuous open space, under one direction, with Primrose Hill, and contains altogether 473 acres. It is far and away the largest of the inner London parks, its area exceeding that of Hyde Park by 112 acres. Its large extent is but one of its advantages. Although not all free to the public, it is all open to the birds, and the existence of several more or less private enclosed areas is all in their favour. On its south, east, and west sides this space has the brick wilderness of London, an endless forest of chimneys defiling the air with their smoke; but on the north side it touches a district where gardens abound, and trees,shrubs, and luxuriant ivy and creepers give it a country-like aspect. This pleasant green character is maintained until Hampstead Heath and the country proper is reached, and over this rural stretch of North-west London the birds come and go freely between the country and Regent’s Park. This large space should be exceedingly attractive to all such birds as are not intolerant of a clay soil. There are extensive green spaces, a good deal of wood, and numerous large shrubberies, which are more suitable for birds to find shelter and breed in than the shrubberies in the central parks. There is also a large piece of ornamental water, with islands, and, better still, the Regent’s Canal running for a distance of nearly one mile through the park. The steeply sloping banks on one side, clothed with rank grass and shrubs and crowned with large unmutilated trees, give this water the appearance of a river in the country, and it is, indeed, along the canal where birds are always most abundant, and where the finest melody may be heard. All these advantages should make Regent’s Park as rich in varied bird life as any open space in the metropolis. Unfortunately the birds are notencouraged, and if this park was not so large, and so placed as to be in some degree in touch with the country, it would be in the same melancholy condition as Hyde Park. The species now found are the blackbird and thrush, greenfinch (rare) and chaffinch, robin, dunnock, and wren (the last very rare), and in summer two or three migrants are added. But most of the birds find it hard to rear any young owing to the birds’-nesting boys and loafers, who are not properly watched, and to the cats that infest the shrubberies. Even by day cats have the liberty of this park. Wood-pigeons come in numbers to feed in the early morning, and a few pairs build nests, but as a rule their eggs are taken. Carrion crows from North London visit the park on most days, and make occasional incursions into the Zoological Gardens, where they are regarded with very unfriendly feelings. They go there on the chance of picking up a crumb or two dropped from the tables of the pampered captives; and perhaps for a peep at the crow-house, where many corvines from many lands may be seen turning their eyes skyward, uttering at the same time a cry of recognition, to watch the sweeping flight oftheir passing relatives, who ‘mock them with their loss of liberty.’

The water-birds (wild) are no better off in this park than the songsters in the shrubberies, yet it could easily be made more attractive and safe as a breeding-place. As it is, the dabchick seldom succeeds in hatching eggs, and even the semi-domestic and easily satisfied moorhen finds it hard to rear any young.

The other great green space in the North-west district is Hampstead Heath, which contains, including Parliament Hill and other portions acquired in recent years, 507 acres. On its outer border it touches the country, in parts a very beautiful country; while on its opposite side it abuts on London proper, forming on the south and south-east the boundary of an unutterably dreary portion of the metropolis, a congeries of large and densely-populated parishes—Kentish and Camden Towns, Holloway, Highbury, Canonbury, Islington, Hoxton: thousands of acres of houses, thousands of miles of streets, vast thoroughfares full of trams and traffic and thunderous noises, interminable roads, respectable and monotonous, and meanstreets and squalid streets innumerable. Here, then, we have a vast part of London, which is like the West-central and East-central districts in that it is without any open space, except the comparatively insignificant one of Highbury Fields. It is to the Heath that the inhabitants of all this portion of London must go for fresh air and verdure; but the distance is too great for most people, and the visits are consequently made on Sundays and holidays in summer. Even this restricted use they are able to make of ‘London’s playing ground,’ or ‘Happy Hampstead,’ as it is lovingly called, must have a highly beneficial effect on the health, physical and moral, of the people.

VIEW ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH

To come to the bird life of this largest of London’s open spaces. Owing to its very openness and large extent, which makes it impossible for the constables to keep a watch on the visitors, especially on the gangs of birds’-nesting boys and young men who make it a happy hunting-ground during the spring and summer months, the Heath is in reality a very unfavourable breeding-place for birds. Linnets, yellowhammers, chaffinches, robins, several warblers, and other species nest every year, but probablyvery rarely succeed in bringing up their young. Birds are nevertheless numerous and in great variety: the large space and its openness attract them, while all about the Heath large private gardens, woods, and preserves exist, which are perfect sanctuaries for most small birds and some large species. There is a small rookery on some elm-trees at the side of the High Street; and another close to the Heath, near Golder’s Hill, on the late Sir Spencer Wells’s property. And in other private grounds the carrion crow, daw, wood-pigeon, stock-dove, turtle-dove, white owl, and wood owl, green and lesser spotted woodpecker still breed. The corncrake is occasionally heard. The following small birds, summer visitors, breed on the Heath or in the adjacent private grounds, especially in Lord Mansfield’s beautiful woods: wryneck and cuckoo, grasshopper-, sedge- and reed-warblers, blackcap and garden warbler, both whitethroats, wood and willow wrens, chiffchaff, redstart, stonechat, pied wagtail, tree-pipit, red-backed shrike, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house martin, swift, and goldfinch. Wheatears visit the Heath on passage; fieldfares may be seen on most days throughout the winter, and occasionally red-wings;also the redpole, siskin, and the grey wagtail. The resident small birds include most of the species to be found in the county of Middlesex. The bullfinch and the hawfinch are rare.

My young friend, Mr. E. C. H. Moule, who is a keen observer, has very kindly sent me his notes on the birds of Hampstead, made during a year’s residence on the edge of the Heath, and taking his list with my own, and comparing them with the list made by Mr. Harting, published in Lobley’s ‘Hampstead Hill’ in 1885, it appears that there have been very few changes in the bird population of this district during the last decade.

It would be difficult to make the Heath itself a safer breeding-place for the birds, resident and migratory, that inhabit it. The only plan would be to establish small sanctuaries at suitable spots. Unfortunately these would have to be protected from the nest-robbers by spiked iron railings, and that open wild appearance of the Heath, which is its principal charm, would be spoiled.

With the ponds something can be done. There are a good number of them, large andsmall, some used for bathing in summer, and all for skating in winter, but so far nothing has been done to make them attractive to the birds; and it may be added that a few beds of rushes and other aquatic plants for cover, which would make them suitable habitations for several species of birds, would also greatly add to their beauty. How little would have to be done to give life and variety to these somewhat desolate-looking pieces of water, may be seen on the Heath itself. One of the smallest is the Leg of Mutton Pond, on the West Heath, a rather muddy pool where dogs are accustomed to bathe. At its narrow end it has a small bed of bulrushes, which has been inhabited by a pair of moorhens for several years past. They are very tame, and appear quite unconcerned in the presence of people standing on the margin to gaze at and admire them, and of the dogs barking and splashing about in the water a few yards away. There is no wire netting to divide their own little domain from the dogs’ bathing place, and no railing on the bank. Yet here they live all the year round very contentedly, and rear brood after brood of young every summer. Here, as in other places, it has beenobserved that the half-grown young birds assist their parents in building a second nest and in rearing the new brood, and it has also been remarked that when the young are fully grown the old birds drive them from the pond. There is room for only one pair in that small patch of rushes, and they know it. The driven-out young wander about in search of a suitable spot to settle in, but find no place on the Heath. Probably some of them spend the winter in Lord Mansfield’s woods. A gentleman residing in the neighbourhood told me that at the end of the short frost in January 1897, when the ice was melted, he saw one morning a large number of moorhens, between thirty and forty, feeding in the meadow near the ponds in Lord Mansfield’s grounds.

I have been told that no rushes have been planted on the Heath, and nothing done to encourage wild birds to settle at the ponds, simply because it has never occurred to anyone in authority, and no person has ever suggested that it would be a good thing to do. Now that the suggestion is made, let us hope that it will receive consideration. I fancy that every lover of nature would agree that a pair or two of quaint prettymoorhens; a pair of lively dabchicks, diving, uttering that long, wild, bubbling cry that is so pleasant to hear, and building their floating nest; and perhaps a sedge-warbler for ever playing on that delightful little barrel-organ of his, would give more pleasure than the pair of monotonous mute swans to be seen on some of the ponds, looking very uncomfortable, much too big for such small sheets of water, and altogether out of harmony with their surroundings.

With the exception of this omission, the management of the Heath by the County Council has so far been worthy of all praise. The trees recently planted will add greatly to the beauty and value of this space, which contains open ground enough for all the thousands that visit it in summer to roam about and take their sun-bath.

Near the Heath, on its east side, in the North London district, we have a group of four highly attractive open spaces. They are ranged in pairs at some distance apart. One pair is Highgate Woods (70 acres) and Churchyard Bottom Wood (52 acres), not yet open to the public; the second pair is Waterlow Park (26acres) and Highgate Cemetery (40 acres). The two first have a special value in their rough, wild, woodland character, wherein they differ from all other open spaces in or near London. But although these spaces are both wildernesses, and so close together as to be almost touching, they each have an individual character. A very large portion of the space called Highgate Woods is veritably a wood, very thick and copse-like, so that to turn aside from the path is to plunge into a dense thicket of trees and saplings, where a lover of solitude might spend a long summer’s day without seeing a human face. Owing to this thick growth it is impossible for the few guardians of this space to keep a watch on the mischievous visitors, with the result that in summer birds’-nesting goes on with impunity; the evil, however, cannot well be remedied if the woods are to be left in their present state. It would certainly greatly add to their charm if such species as inhabit woods of this character were to be met with here—the woodpeckers, the kestrel and sparrow-hawk and the owls, that have not yet forsaken this part of London; and the vociferous jay, shrieking with anger at being disturbed; and thehawfinch, with his metallic clicking note; and the minute, arrow-shaped, long-tailed tits that stream through the upper branches in a pretty procession. But even the warmest friend to the birds would not like to see these woods thinned and cut through with innumerable roads, and the place changed from a wilderness to an artificial garden or show park.

The adjoining Churchyard Bottom Wood is the wildest and most picturesque spot in North London, with an uneven surface, hill and valley, a small stream running through it, old unmutilated trees of many kinds scattered about in groups and groves, and everywhere masses of bramble and furze. It is quite unspoiled, in character a mixture of park and wild, rough common, and wholly delightful. Indeed, it is believed to be a veritable fragment—the only one left—of the primæval forest of Middlesex.

It is earnestly to be hoped that the landscape gardener will not be called in to prepare this place for the reception of the public—the improver on nature, whose conventional mind is only concerned with a fine show of fashionable blooms, whose highest standard is the pretty, cloying artificiality of Kew Gardens. Let himloose here, and his first efforts will be directed to the rooting up of the glorious old gorse and bramble bushes, and the planting of exotic bushes in their place, especially the monotonous rhododendron, that dreary plant the sight of which oppresses us like a nightmare in almost every public park and garden and open space in the metropolis.

Waterlow Park, although small, is extremely interesting, and contains a good amount of large well-grown timber; it is, in fact, one of the real old parks which have been spared to us in London. It is indeed a beautiful and refreshing spot, and being so small and so highly popular, attracting crowds of people every day throughout the summer months, it does not afford a very favourable breeding-place for birds. Nevertheless, the number of songsters of various species is not small, for it is not as if these had no place but the park to breed in; the town in this district preserves something of its rural character, and the bird population of the northern portion of Highgate is, like that of Hampstead, abundant and varied. There is also the fact to be borne in mind that Waterlow Park is one of two spaces that join, the parkbeing divided from the cemetery by a narrow lane or footpath. To the birds these two spaces form one area.

Of Highgate Cemetery it is only necessary to say, in passing, that its ‘manifest destiny’ is to be made one open space for the public with its close neighbour; that from this spot you have the finest view of the metropolis to be had from the northern heights; and when there are green leaves in place of a forest of headstones, and a few large trees where monstrous mausoleums and monuments of stone now oppress the earth, the ground will form one of the most beautiful open spaces in London.

There are two little lakes in Waterlow Park where some ornamental fowls are kept, and of these lakes, or ponds, it may be said, as of the Hampstead ponds, that they are too small for such a giant as the mute swan. On the Thames and on large sheets of water the swan is a great ornament, his stately form and whiteness being very attractive to the eye. On the small ponds he is apt to get his plumage very dirty and to be a mischievous bird. He requires space to move about and look well in, and water-weeds to feed on. It is not strange to find that oursmall, interesting, wild aquatic birds have not succeeded in colonising in this park.

A mile and a half east of Waterlow Park there is the comparatively large park, containing an area of 115 acres, which was foolishly misnamed Finsbury Park by the Metropolitan Board of Works. It is the largest and most important open space in North London, and with the exception of that of Battersea is the best of all the newly-made parks of the metropolis. It promises, indeed, to be a very fine place, but its oldest trees have only been planted twenty-eight years, and have not yet attained to a majestic size. There is one feature which will always to some extent spoil the beauty of this spot—namely, the exceedingly long, straight, monotonous Broad Walk, planted with black poplars, where the trees are all uniform in size and trimmed to the same height from the ground. Should it ever become necessary to cut down a large number of trees in London for fuel, or for the construction of street defences, or some other purpose, it is to be hoped that the opportunity will be seized to get rid of this unsightly avenue.

The best feature in this park is the very large extent of well-planted shrubberies, and it is due to the shelter they afford that blackbirds and thrushes are more abundant here than in any other open space in the metropolis, not even excepting that paradise of birds, Battersea Park. It is delightful to listen to such a volume of bird music as there is here morning and evening in spring and summer. Even in December and January, on a dull cold afternoon with a grey smoky mist obscuring everything, a concert of thrushes may be heard in this park with more voices in it than would be heard anywhere in the country. The birds are fed and sheltered and protected when breeding, and they are consequently abundant and happy. What makes all this music the more remarkable is the noisiness of the neighbourhood. The park is surrounded by railway lines; trains rush by with shrieks and earth-shaking thunder every few moments, and the adjoining thoroughfare of Seven Sisters Road is full of the loud noises of traffic. Here, more than anywhere in London, you are reminded of Milton’s description of the jarring and discordant grating sounds at the opening of hell’s gates; and one would imaginethat in such an atmosphere the birds would become crazed, and sing, if they sang at all, ‘like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.’ But all this noise troubles them not at all; they sing as sweetly here, with voices just as pure and rapturous, as in any quiet country lane or wood.

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