CHAPTER XV

Object of this book—Summary of facts contained in previous chapters—An incidental result of changes in progress—Some degree of protection in all the open spaces, efficient protection in none—Mischievous visitors to the parks—Bird fanciers and stealers—The destructive rough—The barbarians are few—Two incidents at Clissold Park—Love of birds a common feeling of the people.

Themost serious portion of my work still remains to do. In the introductory chapter I said that this was a book with a purpose, and, as the reader knows from much that has gone before, the purpose is to point out how the wild bird life we possess may be preserved, and how it may be improved by the addition of other suitable species which would greatly increase the attractiveness of the parks.

Before going into this part of my subject it would be useful to briefly summarise the main facts disclosed in the foregoing chapters.

1. Many species formerly resident throughoutthe year in London have quite died out; thus, in the present century the following large species have been lost: raven, magpie, peregrine falcon, and kestrel. In very recent years the following small resident species have disappeared from inner London, but are still found in a fewlocalities on the outskirts: missel-thrush, nuthatch, tree-creeper, oxeye, and lesser spotted woodpecker.

2. Some resident species are reduced to small remnants and are confined to one or to a very few spots; in this category we must place the rook, the jackdaw, and the owl.

3. Several other resident species, formerly common, have greatly decreased in numbers, and in some of the open spaces appear to be dying out. Among these are the thrush, blackbird, robin, wren, hedge-sparrow, greenfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, bullfinch, linnet, and lark. Two of these species, thrush and blackbird, are now increasing in several of the open spaces under the County Council, and here and there two or three of the other species named are also increasing.

CHAFFINCH

4. The decrease has been in most, but not all, of the old residents. So far the carrion crow does not appear to have suffered. Two small birds, sparrow and starling, have undoubtedly greatly increased.

5. At the same time that some of the old residents have been decreasing or dying out, a few other species have come in from the outside,and have greatly increased—namely, the ringdove, moorhen, and dabchick.

6. During the season when birds migrate, or shift their quarters, many birds of various species drift into or pass through London: of these some that are summer visitors bred regularly in London up to within a few years ago. Of all these visitors it may be said that they have been decreasing for several years past, and some of them no longer attempt to breed in the inner London parks. At the same time, in a few favoured localities these visitors do not show any falling off, and in one or two of the open spaces they may be actually increasing.

To sum up. For many years there have been constant changes going on in the bird population, many species decreasing, a very few remaining stationary, and a few new colonists appearing; but, generally speaking, the losses greatly exceed the gains.

One incidental result of all these changes, and of the variety of conditions existing and the different degrees of protection given, is that some of the open spaces are now distinguished by the possession of species which are foundin no other spot in the metropolis, or which have elsewhere become exceedingly rare. Thus, Kensington Gardens alone, of all the interior parks, possesses the owl and the jackdaw; St. James’s Park is distinguished by its large number of wood-pigeons and its winter colonies of black-headed gulls; Battersea Park by its wrens and variety of small delicate songsters, both resident and migratory, and its vast congregation of starlings in late summer and early autumn; Wandsworth Common by its yellowhammers; Gray’s Inn Gardens and Brockwell Park by their rookeries; Streatham by its nightingales, magpies, and jays; Ravenscourt Park by its missel-thrushes; Finsbury Park by its large numbers of thrushes and blackbirds. In Kew Gardens the tree-pipit, pied wagtail, and wryneck are more common than elsewhere; Richmond Park has its heronry and a vast multitude of daws; Wanstead has the turtle-dove and hawfinch, and with its land and water birds of all sizes, from the goldcrest to the heron, mallard, and rook, may claim to possess in its narrow limits a more abundant and varied wild bird life than any other metropolitan open space.

The conclusion I have come to, after a careful study of the subject, is that wild birds of all the species remaining to us, and many besides, are very well able to thrive in London; that many species have been and are being lost solely on account of the indifference of the park authorities in the matter; that the comparative abundance and variety of wild bird life in the different open spaces depends on the degree of protection and encouragement the birds receive. And by encouragement I mean the providing them with islands, shrubberies, and such cover as they require when breeding. Thus, we see that in so vast a space as Hyde Park, where there is practically no protection given and nothing done to encourage wild birds, the songsters are few and are decreasing; while in some comparatively small open spaces constantly thronged with visitors the bird life is abundant and varied, and increasing. It should not be, but certainly is, the case that it depends on the person who is in charge of the open space whether anything shall be done to encourage the birds; if he takes no interest in the matter those who are under him will not concern themselves to save the birds. We have seen that veiledbird-catching is permitted in some of the parks; park constables and park labourers have also been allowed to take nests of thrushes and other songsters containing young birds, for their own pleasure or to dispose of to others.

We have seen that the differences between park and park, with regard to the abundance of bird life, are very great; but despite these differences, which depend on the amount of encouragement and protection given, consequently to a great extent on the personal feeling in the matter of the superintendent, it must be said that sufficient protection has not yet been given in any public space in London. All the open spaces are alike infested by cats, the deadliest enemy of the birds which are of most value—the resident species that sing most of the year, and that nest in low bushes or close to the ground. And so long as cats are allowed to range about the parks these species cannot be said to be properly protected. This last point being of great importance will be treated separately and fully in the next chapter; the rest of this chapter will be occupied in discussing an enemy to the birds less difficult to deal with—the mischievous individuals of our own specieswho kill and capture birds and take their eggs and young.

The damage done by the ordinary boy, who throws stones and cannot resist the temptation to take a nest when he has the chance, is hardly appreciable in the parks where there is any real desire on the part of the superintendents and keepers to protect the birds. On some of the large open spaces on the outskirts of London, such as Hampstead Heath and the commons in the South-west district, the keepers are too few to protect the nesting birds, and the eggs are very nearly all taken. A much more serious injury is inflicted by the bird fancier from the slums, who visits the parks with the object of stealing the birds, adults and young, and by the worst kind of blackguard or rough, who kills and smashes when he gets the chance solely for the pleasure of destroying something which others value, or, to quote Bacon’s phrase, ‘because he can do no other.’

As to the bird fancier who is a bird stealer, I have said enough in a former chapter to show that he can very easily be got rid of where there is any real desire to protect the birds.

It remains to say something concerning therough who delights in destruction. That a man should find pleasure in stoning a valuable park bird to death or in trampling down a flower-bed may seem an astonishing thing, when we see that the objects destroyed are solely intended for the people’s pleasure, that they are paid for by the people, and are, in a sense, the people’s property. It may even seem inexplicable, since the rough is a human being and must therefore have the social instinct. But there is really no mystery in it; by inflicting injury on the community he is after all only following other instincts common to man, which are quite as strong and sometimes stronger than the social. He is prompted by the hunting instinct, which is universal and doubtless in him is to some extent perverted; also the love of adventure, since by doing wrong he runs a certain risk, and wins a little glory of a low kind from his associates and others who are of like mind with him; and finally, he is actuated by the love of power, which in its degraded form finds a measure of gratification in hurting others, or in depriving them of a pleasure.

But after all said, these injurious persons are in an exceedingly small, an almost infinitesimal, minority, and the damage they do is little andannually becomes less; so little is it where any vigilance is exercised, that it would not have been worth while to write even these few paragraphs but for the opportunity it gives me of returning to a subject dwelt upon in the opening chapter; for this destructiveness on the part of a few but serves the more fully to illustrate the contrary spirit—the keen and kindly interest in the wild bird life of our open spaces which is almost universal among the people. In the volume dealing with East London, in his enormous work on the ‘Life and Labour of the People,’ Mr. Charles Booth has the following significant passage: ‘The hordes of barbarians of whom we have heard, who, issuing from their slums, will one day overwhelm modern civilisation, do not exist. There are barbarians, but they are a handful, a small and decreasing percentage, a disgrace but not a danger.’ A more absolute confirmation of the truth of these words than the general behaviour of the people who visit the parks, even in the poorest and most congested districts, could not be found. As a rule, when a small park is first opened in some densely populated district, where no public open space previously existed, the people rushin and act as if demented; they are like children released from long confinement who go wild with the first taste of liberty: they shout, climb trees, break off branches, pluck the flowers; but all this is purely the result of a kind of mental intoxication. They are not ‘barbarians’ or ‘yahoos,’ as they are sometimes described by onlookers at the first opening of a new park; they are nothing more than excited young people; the excitement passes, and after a short time the damage ceases, and the place becomes so orderly, and so seldom is any damage done, that the park could almost be left to take care of itself.

I am here tempted to relate two incidents which have occurred at different times in one small open space—Clissold Park. Some tame rooks were kept with the object of establishing a rookery (of which more in a later chapter), and one day last year some young miscreants, who subsequently made their escape, stoned three of the birds to death. The second incident relates to a chaffinch and its nest. The nest was built on a stunted half-dead thorn-bush, very low down and much exposed to sight. Just at the time when the nest was being built some fortyor fifty labourers were called in and set to work to form a pond at this very spot, and it was determined to leave a few yards of ground with the thorn-bush standing on it as an island in the middle of the excavation. When the digging began the first eggs had been laid in the nest, but in spite of the crowd of men at work every day and all day long round the bush, and the incessant noises of loud talking and of shovelling clay into carts and shouting of carters to their horses, the birds did not forsake their task; the eggs were all laid, sat on, the young duly hatched and successfully reared amidst the tumult; and during all this time the men engaged on the work were so jealous of the birds’ safety that they would not allow any of the numberless visitors to the park to come near the bush to look closely at the nest. So long as the young were in the nest the workmen were the chaffinch’s bodyguard.

NEST OF CHAFFINCH

Judging from personal knowledge of the people of London, I should say that these workmen showed in their action the feeling which the people have generally about the wild birds in the parks, and that the rook-slayers mentioned above were rare exceptions, the small percentage of ruffians which we always have to count with,just as we have to count with lunatics and criminals. Doubtless some readers will disagree with this conclusion. I know it is a common idea—one hears it often enough—that love of birds is by no means a general feeling; that it is, on the contrary, somewhat rare, and consequently that those who experience it have some reason to be proud of their superiority. To my mind all this is a pretty delusion; no one flatters himself that he is in any special way a lover of sunshine and green flowery meadows and running waters and shady trees; and I can only repeat here what I have said before, that the delight in a wild bird is as common to all men as the feeling that the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold.

One word more may be added here. We—that is to say, our representatives on the County Council—annually spend some thousands of pounds on gardening, in laying out beds of brilliant tulips, geraniums, and other gay flowers, but, with the exception of the cost of the little food given to the birds in frosty weather in some of the parks, not one pound, not one penny, has been spent directly on the birds; and yet there is no doubt that the birds are more to mostpeople than the flowers; that a gorgeous bed of tulips that has cost a lot of money is regarded by a majority of visitors with a very tepid feeling of admiration compared with that which they experience at the sight or sound, whether musical or not, of any wild bird.

The cat’s unchangeable character—A check on the sparrows—Number of sparrows in London—What becomes of the annual increase—No natural check on the park sparrows—Cats in the parks—Story of a cat at Battersea Park—Rabbits destroyed by cats in Hyde Park—Number of cats in London—Ownerless cats—Their miserable condition—How cats are made ownerless—How this evil may be remedied—How to keep cats out of the parks.

Asit will be necessary to show that, sooner or later, the cat question will have to be dealt with in a manner not pleasant for the cats, it may be well to say at once that I have no prejudice against this creature; on the contrary, of all the lower animals that live with or near us I admire him the most, because of his incorruptibility, his strict adherence to the principle ‘to thine own self be true.’ He lives with but not exactly in subjection to us. The coarser but more plastic dog we can and we do in a sense unmake and remake. Not so with the cat, who keeps to theterms of his ancient charter, in spite of all temptations to allow of a few of the original lines being rubbed out and some new ones written in their place. Old Æsop’s celebrated apologue is as true of to-day as of his own distant time; and thousands of years ago the worshippers of Pasht who had tender hearts must have been scandalised at their deity’s way with a mouse. It would not, perhaps, be quite in order to conclude this exordium without a reference to the poet’s familiar description of the cat as a ‘harmless necessary’ animal. The Elizabethan was doubtless only thinking of rats and mice; in the London of to-day the cat has another important use in keeping down the sparrows. But for this check sparrows would quickly become an intolerable nuisance, fluttering in crowds against our window-panes, crying incessantly for crumbs, and distressing us with the spectacle of their semi-starved condition.

Much has already been said of the sparrow in this work, but the lives of cat and sparrow are so interlaced in London that in speaking of one it becomes necessary to say something of the other. Let us try to get a little nearer to the subject of the connection between thesetwo creatures. When we consider the extreme abundance of the sparrow in all favourable situations and his general diffusion over the entire metropolis; that he inhabits thousands of miles of streets, often many scores of birds to the mile; and that besides all the birds that breed in houses others nest in trees and bushes in every garden, square, park, and other open space, we cannot suppose that there are less than a million of these birds. One day in April, while walking rapidly the length of one walk in a London park I counted 118 nests. There could not have been fewer than 1,000 nests in the whole park. The entire sparrow population of London may be as much as two or three millions, or even more. Putting it as low as one million, the increase of half a million pairs, breeding say four times a year, and rearing at least twelve young (they often rear double that number), we have an annual increase of six millions. Most of this increase goes to the cats; for the cat is the sparrow’s sole enemy, but a really dangerous one only when the bird is just out of the nest; for the young bird very soon becomes strong of wing and alert in mind, and is thereafter comparatively safe from the slayer of his kind.The first instinct of the young urban sparrow, once he has been coaxed by his parents or impelled by something in him to use his wings, is to fly feebly, or rather to flutter downwards to the earth; and there, under a bush in a back garden, or behind a pillar, or in an angle of the wall, or in the area, the cat is waiting. The inexperienced birdling, surprised and probably frightened at a new and strange sensation, trying to balance himself and to come down softly, touches the ground and is struck by sudden death. I have seen successive broods from one nest come forth, and bird by bird at odd times flutter down in this way, seeking a safer spot to rest upon than the sloping roof and narrow ledges and cornices on the walls, and finally touch the earth only to be instantly destroyed. But here one interesting question arises. How, if the facts are as stated, it may be asked, does it happen that the young sparrow so frequently makes this fatal mistake, in spite of his inherited knowledge? I believe the explanation is that the sparrow is essentially a tree bird, notwithstanding his acquired habit of sitting contentedly on buildings in towns. A percher by nature, he is yet able to rub alongfor most of the time without a perch; but we see that even in districts where trees are few and far between the sparrows’ meeting-place or ‘chapel’ is invariably a tree. The young sparrow has not yet acquired this convenient habit of the adults; he is a tree sparrow, incapable of sitting quietly, like the young swallow or martin, on a roof or ledge to be fed there by the parent birds. His perching feet must lay hold of something; and when he cannot, so to speak, anchor himself he is ill at ease, even on the wide surface of a flat roof, and fidgets and hops this way and that, possibly experiencing a sensation as of falling or of being thrown off his stand. It is to escape from this unsuitable flat surface that he flutters or flies off and comes down. This happens when no tree stands conveniently near; when there is a tree beneath or close by the young sparrow makes for it instinctively, as a duckling to water; and if he succeeds in reaching it he shows at once that he has found relief, and is content to remain where he is. It is most interesting to watch a brood of young sparrows just out of the nest settling down on the topmost twigs of a tree, which they have beenlucky enough to reach, and remaining there for hours at a stretch, dozing secure in the sun and wind, even when the wind is strong enough to rock the tree, and only opening their eyes and rousing themselves at intervals on the appearance of one of the parent birds with food in its bill.

PARK SPARROWS

In a large majority of cases the London sparrow has no tree growing conveniently near to the breeding hole, and the consequence is that an incredible number of broods are lost. The parent birds, when a whole brood has thus been snapped up, after a day or two of excitement cheerfully set to work relining the old nest with a few straws, feathers, and hairs. From March to August, some to October, they are occupied with this business, and I do not think that more than two young birds survive out of every dozen of all the sparrows that breed in houses; for with the park birds the case is different. As it is, the birds that escape their subtle enemy are more than enough to make good the annual losses from all other causes. In the streets, back-yards, and gardens an ailing sparrow is, like the inexperienced young bird, quickly snapped up. Inthe parks at all seasons, but particularly in winter, ailing sparrows are not very rare; occasionally a dead one is seen.

The duck and the drakeAre there at his wake,

but the cat comes not in the daylight hours to bury him. When the young park sparrows flutter down from their high nests there is no enemy lying in wait: they get their proper exercise, and in short flights over the turf learn the use of their wings; in the evening they go back to their hollow tree or inaccessible nest. When they are asleep in their safe cradles the cats come on the scene to hunt in the shrubberies, to capture the thrush, blackbird, robin, dunnock, and wren, and in fact any bird that nests in low bushes or on the ground. The noisy clang of the closing park gates is a sound well known to the cats in the neighbourhood; no sooner is it heard than they begin to issue from areas and other places where they have been waiting, and in some spots as many as half a dozen to a dozen may be counted in as many minutes crossing the road and entering the park at one spot. They can go in anywhere, but catsthat are neighbours and personally known to one another often have the habit of going in at one place. All night long they are at their merry games; you may sometimes see them scampering over the turf playing with one another like wild rabbits, and in the breeding season they sup on many an incubating bird caught on its eggs, and on many a nest full of fledglings. In the early morning they are back at their houses, if they are not of the homeless ones, innocently washing their faces in the breakfast room, waiting for the customary caress and saucer of cream. But these luxuries do not alter the animal’s nature: his ‘fearful symmetry’ was for all time, the sinews of his heart cannot be twisted in any other way, and his brain is as it came from the furnace.

The following incident will serve to show the spirit that is in a London cat. Some time ago it was discovered that a very big and a very black one had established himself on an island in the lake at Battersea Park. ‘Then he must have crossed over in a boat, as cats don’t swim,’ cried the superintendent. On going to the place it was found that the cat had killed and partly devoured one tufted duck and twosheldrakes. To dispose of him a company of eighteen workmen and a good hunting dog were sent over to the island. The cat, driven from his hiding-place in the bushes, quickly ascended the tallest tree in his territory. A youth who was a good climber went up after him, and the other men, armed with stout sticks, gathered round the tree to receive the animal on his coming down. The cat quickly made up his mind how to act: down he swiftly came from branch to branch, and in less than two seconds was frantically tearing about among the legs of his adversaries, and bursting through the cordon was quickly in the water swimming for life. Immediately there was a rush for the boats, but before the men could get on to the water the cat had reached the shore and vanished in the thick shrubbery. The men were then disposed in line like beaters and advanced, but in the end the creature escaped from the park and was lost. This animal deserves honourable mention on account of the splendid courage and resource he displayed; but the injury he had caused and the desperate and successful fight for life he made against such tremendous odds show that cats ought not to be allowed in the parks. The loss of the pair ofsheldrakes is felt to be a serious one, and I agree that when unpinioned the bird is very beautiful, and when it shows itself flying over the ornamental waters of a park, I can admire it almost as much as when seeing it on the coasts of Somerset or Northumberland. But a blackcap, a nightingale, a kingfisher destroyed by cats in any park would be as great or even a greater loss to London; and I may add that a few days before writing this chapter, in the summer of 1897, the three wild birds I have just named were to be seen at the very spot where the sheldrakes were killed.

So far as I know, the park cats can only be credited with one good deed. Two or three years ago a number of rabbits were introduced into Hyde Park, and quickly began to increase and multiply, as rabbits will. For a time the cats respected them, being unaccustomed to see such animals, and possibly thinking that they would be dangerous to tackle. But they soon found out that these strangers were the natural prey of a carnivore, and, beginning with the little ones, then going on to those that were grown up, eventually devoured them all. Two big old buck rabbits survived the others for acouple of months, but even these were finally conquered and eaten. I for one am very glad at the result, for it really seemed too ridiculous that our great national park should be turned into a rabbit warren as well as a duck-breeding establishment.

The extraordinary rapidity with which the rabbits were destroyed will serve to give some idea of the numbers and destructiveness of the cats that nightly make the open spaces of London their hunting grounds. How many cats are there in London? Not a word that I am aware of has been written on the subject, and as there is no tax on them there is no possibility of finding out the exact truth. Nevertheless, in an indirect way we may be able to get a proximate idea of their numbers.

The number of dogs in London is supposed to be about two hundred thousand; no doubt it is really greater, since many dogs escape the tax. Cats in London are very much more numerous than dogs. Thus, in the streets I know best, in the part of London where I live, there are about eight cats to every dog; in some streets there are ten or twelve, in others not more than six. If a census could be taken it wouldprobably show that the entire cat population does not fall short of three-quarters of a million; but I may be wide of the mark in this estimate, and should prefer at present to say that there are certainly not less than half a million cats in London. Even this may seem an astonishing number, since it is not usual for any house to have more than one, and in a good many houses not one is kept. On the other hand there is a vast population of ownerless cats. These cannot well be called homeless since they all attach themselves to some house, which they make their home, and to which they return as regularly as any wild beast to its den or lair. Judging solely from my own observation, I do not think that there can be less than from eighty thousand to one hundred thousand of these ownerless cats in the metropolis. Let me take the case of the house I live in. No cat is kept, yet from year’s end to year’s end there are seldom less than three cats to make use of it, or to make it their home. At all hours of the day they are to be seen in the area, or on the doorsteps, or somewhere near; and at odd times they go into the basement rooms—they get in at the windows, or at any door thathappens to be left open, and if not discovered spend the night in the house. There are scores of houses in my immediate neighbourhood which have no smell of valerian about them and are favoured in the same way.

It is not possible at all times of the year to distinguish these ownerless or stray cats from those that have owners; but there are seasons of scarcity for the outdoor animals during which they differ in appearance from the others; and at such times, with some practice, one may get an idea of the number of strays in his own neighbourhood. It is in the winter, during long and severe frosts, that the ownerless ones suffer most, and on a bright day in a walk of a quarter of a mile you will sometimes see as many as a dozen of these poor wretches sunning themselves on one side of the street. On coming close to one of these cats he invariably looks at you with wide-open startled eyes, and so long as you stand quietly regarding him he will keep this look. The moment you speak kindly to him the alarm vanishes from his eyes, he knows you for a friend, and is as ready as any starving human beggar to tell you his miserable story. He mews piteously; butsometimes when his mouth opens no sound issues from it—he is too feeble even to mew. His fur has a harsher appearance than in other cats, the hairs stand up like the puffed-out feathers of an owl, and hide his body’s excessive leanness; but when you lift him up you are astonished at his lightness—he is like a wisp of straw in your hand. The marvel is that when he has got to this pass he can still keep alive from day to day; for in the bleak streets there is no food for him, and the people of the houses he hangs about have hardened their hearts against him on account of his thieving, or because if they give him an occasional scrap of food he will never go away, and their only wish is to see the last of him. Many of these stray cats get most of their food in dust-bins, into which they slink whenever the door is left open for a few minutes. They find a few scraps to keep them alive, and at rare intervals capture a mouse. Sometimes they jump out when ashes are shot into their hiding-place; but the cat who has got hardened merely shuts his eyes against the stinging cloud, crouching in his corner, and is satisfied to remain for days shut up in his dreary cell, finding it more tolerable than thewintry streets and inhospitable areas. It is related of La Fontaine, the fabulist, that he was passionately fond of strawberries, on account of the effect which this fruit had in annually restoring him to comparative health and some pleasure in life; and that during the winter and spring his only wish was that the strawberry season when it came round again would find him still living, since if it delayed its coming he would lose all hope. In like manner these ownerless cats, if they have any thought about their condition, must long for the change in the year that will once more call forth the black-beetles in areas and basements, and bring the young sparrows fluttering down from their inaccessible nests.

How does it happen that there are so many of these strays in London? For cats do not leave their homes of their own accord, except in rare instances when they have been enticed or encouraged to take up their quarters in some other neighbourhood. As a rule the animal prefers its own home with poverty to abundance in a strange place. I believe that a vast majority of these poor ones come from the houses or rooms inhabited by the poor. Most persons areextremely reluctant to put kittens that are not wanted to death. In the houses of the well-to-do the servants are ordered to kill them; but the poor have no person to delegate the dirty work to; and they have, moreover, a kindlier feeling for their pet animals, owing to the fact that they live more with them in their confined homes than is the case with the prosperous. The consequence is that in very many cases not one of a litter is killed; they are mostly given away to friends, and their friends’ children are delighted to have them as pets. The kitten amuses a child immensely with its playful ways, and is loved for its pretty blue eyes full of fun and mischief and wonder at everything. But when it grows up the charm vanishes, and it is found that the cat is in the way; he is often on the common staircase where there are perhaps other cats, and eventually he becomes a nuisance. The poor are also often moving, and are not well able to take their pet from place to place. It is decided to get rid of the cat, but they do not kill it, nor would they like to see it killed by another; it must be ‘strayed’—that is to say, placed in a sack, taken for some miles away from home at night and released in a strange place.

Now this very painful condition of things ought not to continue, and my only reason for going into the subject is to suggest a remedy. This is that the metropolitan police be instructed to remove all stray cats and send them to a lethal chamber provided for the purpose. The ownerless cats, we have seen, do not roam about the town, but have a home, or at all events a house, to which they attach themselves, and which they refuse to leave, however inhospitably or even cruelly they may be treated. On making some inquiries at houses in my own neighbourhood on the subject, I find that most people are anxious to get rid of the stray cats they may happen to have about the place, but are at a loss to know how to do it. In some instances they succeed in straying them again, but the cats are no better off than before, and the starving population is not diminished. But it would be a simple way out of the difficulty if they could have them removed by reporting them to the nearest policeman. We have seen, as a result of the muzzling order imposed by the County Council, that upwards of forty thousand unclaimed dogs have been destroyed in the course of a year (1896), and the presumption is that these dogs were littlevalued and not properly cared for by their owners. The harvest of stray cats would probably not be less than sixty or seventy thousand for the first year.

To return to the parks. The question is how to exclude the hunting cats that frequent them at night. I have conversed with perhaps a hundred superintendents, inspectors, and keepers on the subject, and invariably they say that it is impossible to exclude the cats, or that they do not see how it is to be done. And yet in many parks they are always trying to do it; they hunt them at night with dogs, they shoot them with rook rifles, and they poison them: but all these measures produce no effect, and are, moreover, employed with secrecy and with fear lest the paragraph writer and public should find out, and an outcry be made. It is plain that the cats can only be kept out by means of a suitable fence, or net, or screen of wire. Rabbit wire netting is hardly suitable, as it is unsightly and is not an efficient protection. The most effectual form would be a plain wire fence in squares, the cross wires tied to the uprights with wire thread, the top of the fence made to curve outwards to prevent theanimals from climbing over it. This screen could be placed inside of the park railings at a distance of about three or four feet from them. A fence or screen of this pattern has a handsome appearance, but it is expensive, the cost being about fourpence to fivepence the square foot. Probably some other cheaper and equally effective wire protection could be designed. I have consulted some of the large dealers in wire netting and fencing of all kinds, and they tell me that a fence to keep out cats from parks has yet to be invented. Very likely; at the same time there are probably very many ingenious persons in England who would quickly invent what is wanted if it was made worth their while. It simply comes to this: if the park authorities really wish to keep out the cats they can do so at a moderate cost, and it is not likely that even their worst critics would venture to blame them for spending a few hundreds for such an object.

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

STARLING AT HOME

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

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

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

No doubt some readers of this book will say at once that the reintroduction of the rook into London is impossible, since even in the rural districts, where all the conditions are favourable, it is found extremely difficult to induce the birds to settle where they are wanted. A year or two ago my friend Mr. Cunninghame Graham, writing from his place in the north, told me that he had long desired to have rooks in his trees, and that he had written to an eminent ornithologist, with whom he was not personally acquainted, asking for advice in the matter. The naturalist replied at some length, pointing out the fallacies of Socialism as a political creed, but saying nothing about the rooks. Probably he had nothing practical to write on the subject, but he might at least have informed his correspondentthat Mr. Hawker, the famous parson of Morwenstow, had got his rooks by praying for them. He prayed every day for three years, and his importunity was then rewarded by the birds coming and settling on the very trees where they were wanted.

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

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

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

This experiment with tame rooks has incidentally resulted in a gain to the bird life of North London. In the aviary at Clissold Park a tame female daw was kept; there she formed a very close friendship with a parrot, who had the original way of manifesting, or perhaps I should say dissembling, his love by pulling out her feathers. No doubt she was very much enamoured of the green bird with his foreign ways and commanding voice, as she was always at his side and never in the least resented his ungentle treatment. The poor bird’s breast was at last quite denuded of its covering, and the whole plumage was in such a thin and ragged condition that it was thought best to separate the friends, even at the risk of breaking theirhearts; accordingly the daw was taken away and placed with the tame rooks. The rooks treated her very well, and in their society she probably soon forgot her foreigner. And by-and-by a wild daw was attracted to the tree and joined the company: this was a male bird in fine plumage, and Sergeant Kimber conceived the idea that it would be a good stroke to catch it and clip its wing-tips to prevent it from going away. The wild daw was very cunning; by day he would remain most of the time with the rooks and his ragged friend, but at night he invariably retired to roost in some tall trees in another part of the park. In spite of his cunning he was eventually caught and placed on the rooks’ tree with just the tips of his wings clipped. From that time the two daws were inseparable, and their romantic attachment promised to end in a lasting and happy union; but after a few weeks a second wild daw, this time a female, was attracted to the tree and joined the little community. This was a fine glossy bird, and no sooner had she come than the male daw began to make up to her, coolly throwing over his first love. By this time he had recovered his power of flight, and afterpairing with the new-comer the two went away to spend the honeymoon and look for a suitable residence in the country. The ragged daw lived on with the rooks for a few weeks longer, then she too disappeared, being now able to fly. Three or four weeks later, to everybody’s astonishment, they all came back together accompanied by a fourth bird, a male, with which the ragged one had paired. Somewhere roaming about outside of London they had all met, and the ragged female had probably persuaded them to forget past unpleasantnesses and return to the park; at all events they all seemed very friendly and happy. During the summer of 1897 both pairs bred, one in the upper part of the tall spire of St. Mary’s Church, Stoke Newington, which stands close to the main entrance to the park; the other in a building close by.

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

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

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

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

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