Urban Birds An urban age is undoubtedly producing a bird
with urban habits, some of them a little morbid, as in the sparrows who now nest in flats and devour crocus flowers. Quite a number seem to prefer the town 'before the country. The most striking example is the owl. I had evidence for example ' this very week that they are numerous in St. John's Wood, London. It Is not always an easy thing to get evidence of the species of the owl ; but the chief town-dweller is ua doubtedly the tawny owl ; but the more beneficial barn owl (which is held to be a decreasing species) does not object to noise and the neighbourhood of man and his machineS. When the census of barn owls was taken two or three years ago a nest was found in my immediate neighbourhood in the roof of a rough building in a very busy station yard. On the subject of urban birds, the London pigeons are said to be much healthier than they once were, when their numbers became altogether excessive. The colony that lives in front of the Bank looked to me (on a rare visit to the city this week) peculiarly gay and charming. The " livelier iris " of their plumage gleamed in the soft autumnal sun and they dealt with the traffic as naturally as Wordsworth's warrior who had " a faculty for storm and tuibulence." The nests of their wilder, and yet curiously tamer cousins, begin to stand out saliently from the planes on the Embank, meat as the leaves fall.
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