AQUATIC LIFE IN KEW GARDENS.
THE Round Pond and the Ornamental Lake in Kew Gardens have become, during the last ten or twelve years, scenes of a very busy and stirring community life. From forty to fifty different kinds of English and foreign waterfowl have been gradually domesticated there, and the pleasure of watch- ing and feeding them has become one of the recognised attra 3- tions of the Gardens. There are white swans and black swat s, and white swans with black necks ; a great variety of geese,— brent, bean, bar-beaded, Canadian, Chinese, Egyptian, Magel- lanic, grey-leg, magpie, Sebastopol ; an even greater variety 1 of ducks,—mandarins, paradise, pintail, Muscovy, brown, rosy-billed, call-ducks, divers, wild-ducks, created poachers, gadwalls, white shell-ducks. We do not pretend to have enumerated all the kinds, only those the present writer has specially noticed. Of most of these we believe specimens are to be seen also in St. James's Park. But Kew can boast a few birds not to be found in the London parks, unless the Gardens of the Zoological Society are to be counted among the parks of London. There are two pelicans, some grey herons, and a cor- morant, which, with three white storks, make every afternoon a quaint group on the green bank on the eastern side of the Round Pond. The rest of the birds are fed in the early morning on bread and grain ; but these eat fish, and their daily dole is brought to them by the keeper about 3 o'clock in the after- noon. The hour of three is not always observed with strict punctuality by the caterer ; but it is well remembered by at least one of the diners. Regularly at 3 o'clock, or a few minutes before, the cormorant arrives on the spot, and looks wistfully about him, and the storks are seldom far behind. Dinner may lag a quarter of an hour, half an hour, a whole hour, but the storks and the cor- morant wait on the ground,—the cormorant generally keeping upon one spot, and only showing excitement and impatience by twisting his head from side to side, and spreading his wings and closing them again ; the storks walking restlessly to and fro, and occasionally executing fanny little jumps in the air. The pelicans generally come up with the keeper, and behave in a manner altogether out of keeping with their symmetrical pose and smooth movement when in the water. Stretching their necks high in the air, plunging their bills greedily into the fish-pail, flapping their heavy wings, they flounder about in the most grotesque and ungainly manner conceivable. They are clever catchers, as also are the storks, and it is amusing to see them opening their bills to receive morsels thrown to them. Indeed, catching is a game with the pelicans, as well as a way of taking in food, and they will amuse themselves with throwing an object up in the air, catching it as it falls, and then throwing it to catch again. Only lately, one of the pelicans at Kew ran the risk of doing himself a very serious injury by playing this game with a knife he found lying about. Fortunately, the knife was taken away in time ; had it happened to fall blade downwards into the bird's bill, it must have cut through the skin of the pouch. Their fish- dinner once a day is not the only food these birds get,—they catch fish for themselves in the pond; the storks contrive now and then to spear a young sparrow, and the cormorant has been seen to kill and eat a rat. As in all mixed families, the habits of the different members sometimes interfere with each others' convenience, and sometimes, on the other hand, acci- dentally minister to it. When the cormorant dives deep for his own favourite fish, then is the best moment for the pelicans and herons to look out for theirs,—for the descent of the cormorant is the signal for the fish to fly from the deep waters and fill the shallow ones, where alone the other birds can catch their prey.
Daring spring and summer, the great interest of the birds, and the great anxiety of their keeper, is the care of the young broods. Many of the birds—even some rare and delicate ones —nest in the open, and watch has to be kept to secure the brood as soon as it is hatched, and bring it into the yard, where proper food and protection can be given to the young, who are, otherwise, pretty sure to be carried off by rats or swallowed by eels. The white swan hatched her brood of four handsome cygnets on one of the islands in the long lake, and brought them off on June 1st. It seems a little hard, though it is absolutely necessary, unless the lives of all the other birds on the lake are to be sacrificed, that for about six weeks after the young birds are hatched the male swan, who has hovered round to protect the mother and the eggs during the long weeks of incubation, has to be shut up in a pen away from his family. Otherwise he would fight every creature in the Gardens, and possibly attack human beings also. But even more cruel than this neces- sary separation, is the reception he gets when he is at last restored to his family. The female bird will not at first allow him to come near her, or to have anything to do with the young birds. Happening to visit the birds at feeding-time on the morning after the white male swan had been sent back to the water, we looked in vain for him among the creatures that came to breakfast. The female swan was there with her four cygnets, and many others with her. But the male swan was only to be found, after a long search, alone in a remote part of the lake, and there he ate his solitary meal. Two days later, we had the pleasure of seeing him swimming about on happy terms with his mate and family. it is suggested, in excuse for the female, that she may sus- pect her lord and master of having voluntarily deserted her. But it is difficult to believe that she does not somehow End out that he is confined in the yard very much .against his own will. And it really looks as if, like some ladies who have been left in command too long, she had grown so fond of managing her family in her own way, that she resents the return of the master with rights of inter- ference. This temporary coldness exists even between the black swans under the same circumstances, and it is the more remarkable in their case, as they are paragons of conjugal affection. They nest regularly in the yard on a heap of peat, and during the whole period of incubation the male bird shares the duty of sitting. The female sits all night and comes off at seven in the morning. The male sits through the day and resigns at five in the evening. But during the last few days, the female takes a larger share of the duty, and on the day before the eggs break she keeps the nest all the time. Her maternal instinct is awake to the importance of being on the spot to render first aid to the cygnets on their coming into the world. "When the time comes for letting the female out with her young, she walks up to the cage where the male bird is still confined, and has a little talk with him before taking her family down to the water. None the less, when first he returns to her she will have nothing to say to him. This year the black swan brought off four cygnets ; one died, but the others have done well, and are by this time large and vigorous birds—too large to be any longer taken on their mother's back while she dips down into the water—a favourite amusement with them in their early days. A peculiar charm of these beautiful birds is their musical cry,—a light run upon two or three clear reedy notes, suggesting a fairy bugle-call. Natives of Western Australia, where the seasons are the inverse of our own, their natural breeding-time is in October, but in northern countries they gradually adapt themselves to different conditions. The first year this pair brought off their brood in October, the second year in February, the third year in April, and this year, which is their fourth, in May. They are very tame, and will even feed out of a stranger's hand. The mandarin-ducks, whose quaint plumage and famous domestic virtues—in China and Japan they are carried in state processions as symbols of conjugal affection —make them almost as great favourites with the visitors to the -Gardens as the black swans are, have seldom good fortune with their offspring. They nest every year in the open, bat the young birds are difficult to rear, and often do not live. The swans and most of the geese mate strictly. But sometimes affectionate friendships spring up between birds of different species. There is at this moment an interesting relation of this kind between a male Canadian goose, and a female China goose. Three years ago, the mate of the Canadian goose flew away, and since then he has found consolation in a friendship with this China goose. The China goose has hatched a brood of goslings this summer, and during all the time of her confinement in the yard, the Canadian goose, whose usual home is far away on the lake in another part of the Gardens, has haunted her pen. Every day he has been driven away by the keeper, but only to come back again as quickly as possible. Now that -the China goose is out again with her brood, her Canadian friend is free to dance—or swim—attendance on her as much as he likes. We gave as an instance of service rendered unintentionally by one kind of bird to others, the cormorant driving the fish into shallow waters, where the pelicans and herons can catch them. A sad instance of the sacrifice of the happiness of one set of birds to the welfare of the community, is the necessary confinement in a pen, of the whole flock of sea-gulls during the breeding-season. If they were at liberty they would eat all the young birds ; and so, till these are strong enough to protect themselves, the gulls are kept close in the yard.
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