The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBirds in London

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBirds in LondonThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Birds in LondonAuthor: W. H. HudsonIllustrator: Bryan HookA. D. McCormickPhotographer: R. B. LodgeRelease date: July 25, 2012 [eBook #40334]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by René Anderson Benitz, Adrian Mastronardi, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN LONDON ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Birds in LondonAuthor: W. H. HudsonIllustrator: Bryan HookA. D. McCormickPhotographer: R. B. LodgeRelease date: July 25, 2012 [eBook #40334]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by René Anderson Benitz, Adrian Mastronardi, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)

Title: Birds in London

Author: W. H. HudsonIllustrator: Bryan HookA. D. McCormickPhotographer: R. B. Lodge

Author: W. H. Hudson

Illustrator: Bryan Hook

A. D. McCormick

Photographer: R. B. Lodge

Release date: July 25, 2012 [eBook #40334]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by René Anderson Benitz, Adrian Mastronardi, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN LONDON ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Birds in London, by W. H. Hudson, Illustrated by Bryan Hook, A. D. McCormick, and R. B. Lodge

‘THE CROW WITH HIS VOICE OF CARE’

ILLUSTRATED BY BRYAN HOOK, A. D. McCORMICKAND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS FROM NATURE BY R. B. LODGELONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY1898All rights reserved

ILLUSTRATED BY BRYAN HOOK, A. D. McCORMICKAND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS FROM NATURE BY R. B. LODGE

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY1898

Theopening chapter contains, by way of introduction, all that need be said concerning the object and scope of this work; it remains to say here that, as my aim has been to furnish an account of the London wild bird life of to-day, there was little help to be had from the writings of previous observers. These mostly deal with the central parks, and are interesting now, mainly, as showing the changes that have taken place. At the end of the volume a list will be found of the papers and books on the subject which are known to me. This list will strike many readers as an exceedingly meagre one, when it is remembered that London has always been a home of ornithologists—that from the days of Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote pleasantlyof the Temple Gardens rookery, and of Thomas Pennant and his friend Daines Barrington, there have never been wanting observers of the wild bird life within our gates: The fact remains that, with the exception of a few incidental passages to be found in various ornithological works, nothing was expressly written about the birds of London until James Jennings’s ‘Ornithologia’ saw the light a little over seventy years ago. Jennings’s work was a poem, probably the worst ever written in the English language; but as he inserted copious notes, fortunately in prose, embodying his own observations on the bird life of east and south-east London, the book has a very considerable interest for us to-day. Nothing more of importance appeared until the late Shirley Hibberd’s lively paper on ‘London Birds’ in 1865. From that date onward the subject has attracted an increased attention, and at present we have a number of London or park naturalists, as they might be called, who view the resident London species as adapted to an urban life, and who chronicle their observations in the ‘Field,’‘Nature,’ ‘Zoologist,’ ‘Nature Notes,’ and other natural history journals, and in the newspapers and magazines.

To return to the present work. Treating of actualities I have been obliged for the most part to gather my own materials, relying perhaps too much on my own observation; since London is now too vast a field for any person, however diligent, to know it intimately in all its extent.

Probably any reader who is an observer of birds on his own account, and has resided for some years near a park or other open space in London, will be able to say, by way of criticism, that I have omitted some important or interesting fact known to him—something that ought to have had a place in a work of this kind. In such a case I can only plead either that the fact was not known to me, or that I had some good reason for not using it. Moreover, there is a limit to the amount of matter which can be included in a book of this kind, and a selection had to be made from a large number of facts and anecdotes I had got together.

All the matter contained in this book, with the exception of one article, or part of an article, on London birds, in the ‘Saturday Review,’ now appears for the first time.

In conclusion, I have to express my warm thanks to those who have helped me in my task, by supplying me with fresh information, and in other ways.

W. H. H.

London:April, 1898.

CHAPTER ITHE BIRDS AND THE BOOKPAGEA handbook of London birds considered—Reasons for not writing it—Changes in the character of the wild bird population, and supposed cause—The London sparrow—Its abundance—Bread-begging habits—Monotony—Its best appearance—Beautiful finches—Value of open spaces—The sparrows’ afternoon tea in Hyde Park—Purpose of this book1CHAPTER IICROWS IN LONDONA short general account of the London crows—The magpie—The jay—London ravens—The Enfield ravens—The Hyde Park ravens—The Tower ravens—The carrion crow, rook, and jackdaw20CHAPTER IIITHE CARRION CROW IN THE BALANCEThe crow in London—Persecuted in the royal parks—Degradation of Hyde Park—Ducks in the Serpentine:how they are thinned—Shooting a chicken with a revolver—Habits of the Hyde Park mallard—Anecdotes—Number of London crows—The crow a long-lived bird: a bread-eater—Anecdote—Seeks its food on the river—The crow as a pet—Anecdotes32CHAPTER IVTHE LONDON DAWRarity of the daw in London—Pigeons and daws compared—Æsthetic value of the daw as a cathedral bird—Kensington Palace daws; their disposition and habits—Friendship with rooks—Wandering daws at Clissold Park—Solitary daws—Mr. Mark Melford’s birds—Rescue of a hundred daws—The strange history of an egg-stealing daw—White daws—White ravens—Willughby’s speculations—A suggestion52CHAPTER VEXPULSION OF THE ROOKSPositions of the rook and crow compared—Gray’s Inn Gardens rookery—Break-up of the old, and futile attempt of the birds to establish new rookeries—The rooks a great loss to London—Why the rook is esteemed—Incidents in the life of a tame rook—A first sight of the Kensington Gardens rookery—The true history of the expulsion of the rooks—A desolate scene, and a vision of London beautified68CHAPTER VIRECENT COLONISTSThe wood-pigeon in Kensington Gardens—Its increase—Its beauty and charm—Perching on Shakespeare’s statue in Leicester Square—Change of habits—The moorhen—Itsappearance and habits—An æsthetic bird—Its increase—The dabchick in London—Its increase—Appearance and habits—At Clissold Park—The stock-dove in London89CHAPTER VIILONDON’S LITTLE BIRDSNumber of species, common and uncommon—The London sparrow—His predominance, hardiness, and intelligence—A pet sparrow—Breeding irregularities—A love-sick bird—Sparrow shindies: their probable cause—‘Sparrow chapels’—Evening in the parks—The starling—His independence—Characteristics—Blackbird, thrush, and robin—White blackbirds—The robin—Decrease in London—Habits and disposition104CHAPTER VIIIMOVEMENTS OF LONDON BIRDSMigration as seen in London—Swallows in the parks—Fieldfares—A flock of wild geese—Autumn movements of resident species—Wood-pigeons—A curious habit—Dabchicks and moorhens—Crows and rooks—The Palace daws—Starlings—Robins—A Tower robin and the Tower sparrows—Passage birds in the parks—Small birds wintering in London—Influx of birds during severe frosts—Occasional visitors—The black-headed gull—A winter scene in St. James’s Park129CHAPTER IXA SURVEY OF THE PARKS: WEST LONDONA general survey of the metropolitan parks—West London—Central parks, with Holland Park—A bird’s highway—Decrease of songsters—The thrush in KensingtonGardens—Suggestions—Owls in Kensington Gardens—Other West London open spaces—Ravenscourt Park as it was and as it is151CHAPTER XNORTH-WEST AND NORTH LONDONOpen spaces on the borders 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 Cemetery171CHAPTER XIEAST LONDONCondition of the East district—Large circular group of open spaces—Hackney Downs and London Fields—Victoria Park with Hackney Common—Smoky atmosphere—Bird life—Lakes—An improvement suggested—Chaffinch fanciers—Hackney Marsh with North and South Mill Fields—Unique character of the Marsh—White House Fishery—The vanished sporting times—Anecdotes—Collection of rare birds—A region of marshes—Wanstead Old Park—Woodland character—Bird life—Heronry and rookery—A suggestion192CHAPTER XIISOUTH-EAST LONDONGeneral survey of South London—South-east London: its most populous portion—Three small open spaces—Camberwell New Park—Southwark Park—Kennington Park—Fine shrubberies—Greenwich Park and Blackheath—A stately and depressing park—Mutilated trees—The extreme East—Bostell Woods and Heath—Their peculiar charm—Woolwich and Plumstead Commons—Hilly Fields—Peckham Rye and Park—A remonstrance—Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries—Dulwich Park—Brockwell Park—The rookery216CHAPTER XIIISOUTH-WEST LONDONIntroductory remarks—Comparative large extent of public ground in South-west London—Battersea Park—Character and popularity—Bird life—Clapham Common: its present and past character—Wandsworth Common—The yellowhammer—Tooting Common—Tooting Bec—Questionable improvements—A passion for swans—Tooting Graveney—Streatham Common—Bird life—Magpies—Rookery—Bishop’s Park, Fulham—A suggestion—Barn Elms Park—Barnes Common—A burial-ground—Birds—Putney Heath, Lower Putney Common, and Wimbledon Common—Description—Bird life—Rookeries—The badger—Richmond Park—Its vast extent and character—Bird life—Daws—Herons—The charm of large soaring birds—Kew Gardens—List of birds—Unfavourable changes—The Queen’s private grounds237CHAPTER XIVPROTECTION OF BIRDS IN THE PARKSObject 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—Thedestructive rough—The barbarians are few—Two incidents at Clissold Park—Love of birds a common feeling of the people270CHAPTER XVTHE CAT QUESTIONThe 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 parks284CHAPTER XVIBIRDS FOR LONDONRestoration 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 described304Bibliography330Index331

PLATES‘The Crow with his Voice of Care’Frontispiece‘The Seven Sisters’to face p.24Carrion Crow’s Nest"34Pigeons at the Law Courts"52Wood-pigeon on Shakespeare’s Statue"92Love-sick Cock Sparrow"112Feeding the Gulls at St. James’s Park"148Map of London"156View on Hampstead Heath"176White House Fishery, Hackney Marsh"206Wanstead Old Park: Early Spring"214Bostell Heath and Woods"226The Rookery, Brockwell Park"234Wimbledon Common"256Nest of Chaffinch"280Park Sparrows"290Moorhen and Chicks"316

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXTPAGEPark Sparrow Begging11The Last Raven21The Lady and the Daw60London Crows69Dabchick on Nest99London Starlings119Fieldfares at the Tower131Wood-pigeon Feeding on Haws136Ravenscourt Park153Cormorants at St. James’s Park170Dabchick Feeding its Young189Nightingale on its Nest249Chaffinch271Starling at Home303Dabchick’s Floating Nest: St. James’s Park329

A handbook of London birds considered—Reasons for not writing it—Changes in the character of the wild bird population, and supposed cause—The London sparrow—Its abundance—Bread-begging habits—Monotony—Its best appearance—Beautiful finches—Value of open spaces—The sparrows’ afternoon tea in Hyde Park—Purpose of this book.

Amongthe many little schemes and more or less good intentions which have flitted about my brain like summer flies in a room, there was one for a small volume on London birds; to contain, for principal matter, lists of the species resident throughout the year, of the visitants, regular and occasional, and of the vanished species which have inhabited the metropolis in recent, former, or historical times. For everyone, even the veriest Dryasdust among us, has some glow of poetic feeling in him, some lingering regretfor the beautiful that has vanished and returneth not; consequently, it would be hard in treating of London bird life not to go back to times which now seem very ancient, when the kite was common—the city’s soaring scavenger, protected by law, just as the infinitely less attractive turkey-buzzard is now protected in some towns of the western world. Again, thanks to Mr. Harting’s researches into old records, we have the account of beautiful white spoonbills, associated with herons, building their nests on the tree-tops in the Bishop of London’s grounds at Fulham.

To leave this fascinating theme. It struck me at first that the book vaguely contemplated might be made useful to lovers and students of bird life in London; and I was also encouraged by the thought that the considerable amount of printed material which exists relating to the subject would make the task of writing it comparatively easy.

But I no sooner looked attentively into the subject than I saw how difficult it really was, and how unsatisfactory, and I might almost add useless, the work would prove.

To begin with, what is London? It is avery big town, a ‘province covered with houses’; but for the ornithologist where, on any side, does the province end? Does it end five miles south of Charing Cross, at Sydenham, or ten miles further afield, at Downe? Or, looking north, do we draw the line at Hampstead, or Aldenham? The whole metropolitan area has, let us say, a circumference of about ninety miles, and within its outermost irregular boundary there is room for half a dozen concentric lines, each of which will contain a London, differing greatly in size and, in a much less degree, in character. If the list be made to include all the birds found in such rural and even wild places—woods, thickets, heaths, and marshes—as exist within a sixteen-mile radius, it is clear that most of the inland species found in the counties of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and Essex would be in it.

The fact is, in drawing up a list of London birds, the writer can, within limits, make it as long or short as he thinks proper. Thus, if he wishes to have a long list, and is partial to round numbers, he will be able to get a century of species by making his own twelve or thirteen mile radius. Should he then alter his mind,and think that a modest fifty would content him, all he would have to do to get that number would be to contract his line, bringing it somewhere near the indeterminate borders of inner London, where town and country mix or pass into each other. Now a handbook written on this plan would be useful only if a very exact boundary were drawn, and the precise locality given in which each resident or breeding species had its haunts, where the student or lover of birds could watch or listen for it with some chance of being rewarded. Even so, the book would not serve its purpose for a longer period than two or three years; after three years it would most certainly be out of date, so great and continuous is the growth of London on all sides. Thus, going round London, keeping to that partly green indeterminate borderland already mentioned, there are many little hidden rustic spots where in the summer of 1897 the woodpecker, green and spotted, and the nuthatch and tree-creeper bred; also the nightingale, bottle-tit, and wryneck, and jay and crow, and kestrel and white and brown owl; but who can say that they will breed in the same places in 1899, or even in 1898? For these little green rusticrefuges are situated on the lower slopes of a volcano, which is always in a state of eruption, and year by year they are being burnt up and obliterated by ashes and lava.

After I had at once and for ever dropped, for the reasons stated, all idea of a handbook, the thought remained that there was still much to be said about London bird life which might be useful, although in another way. The subject was often in my mind during the summer months of 1896 and 1897, which, for my sins, I was compelled to spend in town. During this wasted and dreary period, when I was often in the parks and open spaces in all parts of London, I was impressed more than I had been before with the changes constantly going on in the character of the bird population of the metropolis. These changes are not rapid enough to show a marked difference in a space of two or three years; but when we take a period of fifteen or twenty years, they strike us as really very great. They are the result of the gradual decrease in numbers and final dying out of many of the old-established species, chiefly singing birds, and, at the same time, the appearance ofother species previously unknown in London, and their increase and diffusion. Considering these two facts, one is inclined to say off-hand that the diminution or dying out of one set of species is simply due to the fact that they are incapable of thriving in the conditions in which they are placed; that the London smoke is fatal in the long run to some of the more delicate birds, as it undoubtedly is to the rose and other plants that require pure air and plenty of sunshine; and that, on the other hand, the new colonists that are increasing are species of a coarser fibre, greater vitality, and able, like the plane-tree in the plant world, to thrive in such conditions. It is really not so: the tits and finches, the robin, wren, hedge-sparrow, pied wagtail, some of the warblers, and the missel-thrush, are as vigorous and well able to live in London as the wood-pigeon. They are, moreover, very much more prolific than the pigeon, and find their food with greater ease. Yet we see that these lively, active species are dying out, while the slow, heavy dove, which must eat largely to live, and lays but two eggs on a frail platform of sticks for nest, is rapidly increasing.

Here then, it seemed, was a subject which it might be for the advantage of the bird-lovers in London to consider; and I write in the conviction that there are as many Londoners who love the sight and sound of wild bird life as there are who find refreshment in trees and grass and flowers, who are made glad by the sight of a blue sky, to whom the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold.

In going about London, after my mind had begun to dwell on this subject, I was frequently amused, and sometimes teased, by the sight and sound of the everywhere-present multitudinous sparrow. In London there are no grain-growers and market-gardeners, consequently there is no tiresome sparrow question, and no sparrow-clubs to vex the tender-hearted. These sparrows were not to be thought about in their relation to agriculture, but were simply little birds, too often, in many a weary mile, in many an unlovely district, the only representatives of the avian class, flying to and fro, chirping and chirruping from dawn to dark; nor birds only: I had them also for butterflies, seen sometimes in crowds and clouds, as in the tropics, with norich nor splendid colouring on their wings; and I had them for cicadas, and noisy locusts of arboreal habits, hundreds and thousands of them, whirring in a subdued way in the park trees during the sultry hours. They were all these things and scavengers as well, ever busy at their scavengering in the dusty and noisy ways; everywhere finding some organic matter to comfort their little stomachs, or to carry to their nestlings.

At times the fanciful idea would occur to me that I was on a commission appointed to inquire into the state of the wild bird life of London, or some such subject, and that my fellow commissioners were sparrows, so incessantly were they with me, though in greatly varying numbers, during my perambulations.

After all, the notion that they attended or accompanied me in my walks was not wholly fanciful. For no sooner does any person enter any public garden or park, or other open space where there are trees, than, if he be not too absorbed in his own thoughts, he will see that several sparrows are keeping him company, flying from tree to tree, or bush to bush, alighting occasionally on the ground near him, watchinghis every movement; and if he sit down on a chair or bench several of them will come close to him, and hop this way and that before him, uttering a little plaintive note of interrogation—Have you got nothing for us?They have come to look on every human being who walks among the park trees and round the garden-beds as a mere perambulating machine for the distribution of fragments of bread. The sparrow’s theory or philosophy of life, from our point of view, is very ridiculous, but he finds it profitable, and wants no better.

I remember that during those days, when the little creatures were so much with me, whether I wanted them or no, some person wrote to one of the newspapers to say that he had just made the acquaintance of the common sparrow in a new character. The sparrow was and always had been a familiar bird to him, but he had never previously seen it gathered in crowds at its ‘afternoon tea’ in Hyde Park, a spectacle which he had now witnessed with surprise and pleasure.

If (I thought) this innumerous feathered company could only be varied somewhat, the modest plumage retouched, by Nature, withharmonious olive green and yellow tints, pure greys and pure browns, with rose, carmine, tile and chestnut reds; and if the monotonous little burly forms could be reshaped, and made in some cases larger, in others smaller, some burlier still and others slimmer, more delicate and aërial in appearance, the spectacle of their afternoon tea would be infinitely more attractive and refreshing than it now is to many a Londoner’s tired eyes.

Their voices, too—for the refashioned mixed crowd would have a various language, like the species that warble and twitter and call musically to one another in orchard and copse—would give a new and strange delight to the listener.

No doubt the sparrow is, to quote the letter-writer’s expression, ‘a jolly little fellow,’ quite friendly with his supposed enemy man, amusing in his tea-table manners, and deserving of all the praise and crumbs we give him. He is even more. To those who have watched him begging for and deftly catching small scraps of bread, suspended like a hawk-moth in the air before the giving hand, displaying his conspicuous black gorget and the pale ash colour of his undersurface, while his rapidly vibrating wings are made silky and translucent by the sunlight passing through them, he appears, indeed, a pretty and even graceful creature.

PARK SPARROWBEGGINGBut he is, after all, only a common sparrow, a mean representative of bird life in our midst; in all the æsthetic qualities which make birds charming—beauty of form and colour, grace of motion, and melody—less than the least of the others. Therefore to greatly praise him is to publishour ignorance, or, at all events, to make it appear that he is admired because, being numerous and familiar with man, he has been closely and well looked at, while the wilder and less common species have only been seen at a distance, and therefore indistinctly.A distinguished American writer on birds once visited England in order to make the acquaintance of our most noted feathered people, and in his haste pronounced the chaffinch the ‘prettiest British songster.’ Doubtless he had seen it oftenest, and closely, and at its best; but he would never have expressed such an opinion if he had properly seen many other British singing birds; if, for instance (confining ourselves to the fringilline family), he had seen his ‘shilfa’s’ nearest relation, the brambling, in his black dress beautifully variegated with buff and brown; or the many-coloured cirl-bunting; or that golden image of a bird, the yellowhammer; or the green siskin, ‘that lovely little oddity,’ seeking his food, tit-like, among the pine needles, or clinging to pendulous twigs; or the linnet in his spring plumage—pale grey and richest brown and carmine—singing among the flowery gorse; or the goldfinch, flittingamidst the apple-bloom in May, or feeding on the thistle in July and August, clinging to the downy heads, twittering as he passes from plant to plant, showing his gay livery of crimson, black, and gold; or the sedentary bullfinch, a miniature hawk in appearance, with a wonderful rose-coloured breast, sitting among the clustering leaves of a dark evergreen—yew or holly.Beautiful birds are all these, and there are others just as beautiful in other passerine families, but alas! they are at a distance from us; they live in the country, and it is only that small ‘whiff of the country’ to be enjoyed in a public park which fate allows to the majority of Londoners, the many thousands of toilers from year’s end to year’s end, and their wives and children.To those of us who take an annual holiday, and, in addition, an occasional run in the country, or who are not bound to town, it is hardly possible to imagine how much is meant by that little daily or weekly visit to a park. Its value to the confined millions has accordingly never been, and probably cannot be, rightly estimated. For the poor who have not thoseperiods of refreshment which others consider so necessary to their health and contentment, the change from the close, adulterated atmosphere of the workshop and the living-room, and stone-paved noisy street, to the open, green, comparatively quiet park, is indeed great, and its benefit to body and mind incalculable. The sight of the sun; of the sky, no longer a narrow strip, but wide, infinite over all; the freshness of the unconfined air which the lungs drink in; the green expanse of earth, and large trees standing apart, away from houses—all this produces a shock of strange pleasure and quickens the tired pulse with sudden access of life. In a small way—sad it is to think in how small a way!—it is a return to nature, an escape for the moment from the prison and sick-room of unnatural conditions; and the larger and less artificial the park or open space, and the more abounding in wild, especially bird, life, the more restorative is the effect.It is indeed invariably the animal life which exercises the greatest attraction and is most exhilarating. It is really pathetic to see how many persons of the working class come every day, all the year round, but especially in thesummer months, to that minute transcript of wild nature in Hyde Park at the spot called the Dell, where the Serpentine ends. They are drawn thither by the birds—the multitude of sparrows that gather to be fed, and the wood-pigeons, and a few moorhens that live in the rushes.‘I call these my chickens, and I’m obliged to come every day to feed them,’ said a paralytic-looking white-haired old man in the shabbiest clothes, one evening as I stood there; then, taking some fragments of stale bread from his pockets, he began feeding the sparrows, and while doing so he chuckled with delight, and looked round from time to time to see if the others were enjoying the spectacle.To him succeeded two sedate-looking labourers, big, strong men, with tired, dusty faces, on their way home from work. Each produced from his coat-pocket a little store of fragments of bread and meat, saved from the midday meal, carefully wrapped up in a piece of newspaper. After bestowing their scraps on the little brown-coated crowd, one spoke: ‘Come on, mate, they’ve had it all, and now let’s go home and see what the missus has got forourtea’; and home they trudged across the park, with hearts refreshed and lightened, no doubt, to be succeeded by others and still others, London workmen and their wives and children, until the sun had set and the birds were all gone.Here then is an object lesson which no person who is capable of reading the emotions in the countenance, who has any sympathy with his fellow-creatures, can fail to be impressed by. Not only at that spot in Hyde Park may it be seen, but at all the parks and open spaces in London; in some more than others, as at St. James’s Park, where the gulls are fed during the winter months, and at Battersea and Regent’s Parks, where the starlings congregate every evening in July and August. What we see is the perpetual hunger of the heart and craving of those who are compelled to live apart from Nature, who have only these momentary glimpses of her face, and of the refreshment they experience at sight of trees and grass and water, and, above everything, of wild and glad animal life. How important, then, that the most should be made of our few suitable open spaces; that everything possible should be done to maintainin them an abundant and varied wild bird life! Unfortunately, this has not been seen, else we should not have lost so much, especially in the royal parks. In some of the parks under the County Council there are great signs of improvement, an evident anxiety to protect and increase the stock of wild birds; but even here the most zealous of the superintendents are not fully conscious of the value of what they are themselves doing. They are encouraging the wild birds because they are considered ‘ornaments’ to the park, just as they plant rhododendrons and other exotic shrubs that have big gaily-coloured flowers in their season, and as they exhibit some foreign bird of gorgeous plumage in the park aviary. They have not yet grasped the fact—I hope Mr. Sexby, the excellent head of the parks department, will pardon my saying it—that the feathered inhabitants of our open spaces are something more than ‘ornaments’; that the sight and sound of any wild bird, from the croaking carrion crow to the small lyrical kitty wren or tinkling tomtit, will afford more pleasure to the Londoner—in other words, conduce more to his health andhappiness—than all the gold pheasants and other brightly-apparelled prisoners, native and foreign, to be seen in the park cages.

PARK SPARROWBEGGING

But he is, after all, only a common sparrow, a mean representative of bird life in our midst; in all the æsthetic qualities which make birds charming—beauty of form and colour, grace of motion, and melody—less than the least of the others. Therefore to greatly praise him is to publishour ignorance, or, at all events, to make it appear that he is admired because, being numerous and familiar with man, he has been closely and well looked at, while the wilder and less common species have only been seen at a distance, and therefore indistinctly.

A distinguished American writer on birds once visited England in order to make the acquaintance of our most noted feathered people, and in his haste pronounced the chaffinch the ‘prettiest British songster.’ Doubtless he had seen it oftenest, and closely, and at its best; but he would never have expressed such an opinion if he had properly seen many other British singing birds; if, for instance (confining ourselves to the fringilline family), he had seen his ‘shilfa’s’ nearest relation, the brambling, in his black dress beautifully variegated with buff and brown; or the many-coloured cirl-bunting; or that golden image of a bird, the yellowhammer; or the green siskin, ‘that lovely little oddity,’ seeking his food, tit-like, among the pine needles, or clinging to pendulous twigs; or the linnet in his spring plumage—pale grey and richest brown and carmine—singing among the flowery gorse; or the goldfinch, flittingamidst the apple-bloom in May, or feeding on the thistle in July and August, clinging to the downy heads, twittering as he passes from plant to plant, showing his gay livery of crimson, black, and gold; or the sedentary bullfinch, a miniature hawk in appearance, with a wonderful rose-coloured breast, sitting among the clustering leaves of a dark evergreen—yew or holly.

Beautiful birds are all these, and there are others just as beautiful in other passerine families, but alas! they are at a distance from us; they live in the country, and it is only that small ‘whiff of the country’ to be enjoyed in a public park which fate allows to the majority of Londoners, the many thousands of toilers from year’s end to year’s end, and their wives and children.

To those of us who take an annual holiday, and, in addition, an occasional run in the country, or who are not bound to town, it is hardly possible to imagine how much is meant by that little daily or weekly visit to a park. Its value to the confined millions has accordingly never been, and probably cannot be, rightly estimated. For the poor who have not thoseperiods of refreshment which others consider so necessary to their health and contentment, the change from the close, adulterated atmosphere of the workshop and the living-room, and stone-paved noisy street, to the open, green, comparatively quiet park, is indeed great, and its benefit to body and mind incalculable. The sight of the sun; of the sky, no longer a narrow strip, but wide, infinite over all; the freshness of the unconfined air which the lungs drink in; the green expanse of earth, and large trees standing apart, away from houses—all this produces a shock of strange pleasure and quickens the tired pulse with sudden access of life. In a small way—sad it is to think in how small a way!—it is a return to nature, an escape for the moment from the prison and sick-room of unnatural conditions; and the larger and less artificial the park or open space, and the more abounding in wild, especially bird, life, the more restorative is the effect.

It is indeed invariably the animal life which exercises the greatest attraction and is most exhilarating. It is really pathetic to see how many persons of the working class come every day, all the year round, but especially in thesummer months, to that minute transcript of wild nature in Hyde Park at the spot called the Dell, where the Serpentine ends. They are drawn thither by the birds—the multitude of sparrows that gather to be fed, and the wood-pigeons, and a few moorhens that live in the rushes.

‘I call these my chickens, and I’m obliged to come every day to feed them,’ said a paralytic-looking white-haired old man in the shabbiest clothes, one evening as I stood there; then, taking some fragments of stale bread from his pockets, he began feeding the sparrows, and while doing so he chuckled with delight, and looked round from time to time to see if the others were enjoying the spectacle.

To him succeeded two sedate-looking labourers, big, strong men, with tired, dusty faces, on their way home from work. Each produced from his coat-pocket a little store of fragments of bread and meat, saved from the midday meal, carefully wrapped up in a piece of newspaper. After bestowing their scraps on the little brown-coated crowd, one spoke: ‘Come on, mate, they’ve had it all, and now let’s go home and see what the missus has got forourtea’; and home they trudged across the park, with hearts refreshed and lightened, no doubt, to be succeeded by others and still others, London workmen and their wives and children, until the sun had set and the birds were all gone.

Here then is an object lesson which no person who is capable of reading the emotions in the countenance, who has any sympathy with his fellow-creatures, can fail to be impressed by. Not only at that spot in Hyde Park may it be seen, but at all the parks and open spaces in London; in some more than others, as at St. James’s Park, where the gulls are fed during the winter months, and at Battersea and Regent’s Parks, where the starlings congregate every evening in July and August. What we see is the perpetual hunger of the heart and craving of those who are compelled to live apart from Nature, who have only these momentary glimpses of her face, and of the refreshment they experience at sight of trees and grass and water, and, above everything, of wild and glad animal life. How important, then, that the most should be made of our few suitable open spaces; that everything possible should be done to maintainin them an abundant and varied wild bird life! Unfortunately, this has not been seen, else we should not have lost so much, especially in the royal parks. In some of the parks under the County Council there are great signs of improvement, an evident anxiety to protect and increase the stock of wild birds; but even here the most zealous of the superintendents are not fully conscious of the value of what they are themselves doing. They are encouraging the wild birds because they are considered ‘ornaments’ to the park, just as they plant rhododendrons and other exotic shrubs that have big gaily-coloured flowers in their season, and as they exhibit some foreign bird of gorgeous plumage in the park aviary. They have not yet grasped the fact—I hope Mr. Sexby, the excellent head of the parks department, will pardon my saying it—that the feathered inhabitants of our open spaces are something more than ‘ornaments’; that the sight and sound of any wild bird, from the croaking carrion crow to the small lyrical kitty wren or tinkling tomtit, will afford more pleasure to the Londoner—in other words, conduce more to his health andhappiness—than all the gold pheasants and other brightly-apparelled prisoners, native and foreign, to be seen in the park cages.

From the foregoing it will be seen that this little book, which comes in place of the one I had, in a vague way, once thought of writing, is in some degree a book with a purpose. Birds are not considered merely as objects of interest to the ornithologist and to a few other persons—objects or creatures which the great mass of the people of the metropolis have really nothing to do with, and vaguely regard as something at a distance, of no practical import, or as wholly unrelated to their urban life. Rather they are considered as a necessary part of those pleasure- and health-giving transcripts of nature which we retain and cherish as our best possessions—the open sun-lit and tree-shaded spaces, green with grass and bright with water; so important a part indeed, as bringing home to us that glad freedom and wildness which is our best medicine, that without it all the rest would lose much of its virtue.

But on this point—the extreme pleasurewhich the confined Londoner experiences in seeing and hearing wild birds, and the consequent value of our wild bird life—enough has been said in this place, as it will be necessary to return to the subject in one of the concluding chapters.

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