A Penny of Observation
ARNADO : How haat thou purchased this experience ? MOTH : By my penny of observation.
(Love's Labour's Lost.)
THE THIN Elio OF THE WEDGE.
The Times reported last week that for three evenings in succession a heron had been observed perching on the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The news caused widespread alarm in lay and clerical circles alike. If one heron, people were saying to each other all over England, why not more ? Where is it all going to end Y If a craze for sitting in the tops of trees can spread like wildfire through a community of civilized Americans, may we not fear that a similar, and far less unnatural, passion for sitting on the roofs of cathedrals is calculated to infect a species of bird ? We may indeed. It is all very well for the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to say, in what we consider to be a very ill-judged tone of condescension, that the European heron " rarely exceeds 4 lb. in weight." Although no reliable figures exist from which can be computed the exact number of these birds who could, if the spirit moved them, make the journey to London, the total is without doubt a formidable one, and if herons were to start arriving at St. Paul's at the rate of only twenty-eight a day (in our view an extremely con- servative estimate), the dome will be supporting something like seven tons of them by the end of the year. For once, we are glad to see, public opinion is alert to the potential gravity of the situation ; the nation is in a fever of anxiety.
But the authorities, as usual, remain apathetic. We under- stand that the Dean and Chapter—though in the past they have done little enough, heaven knows, to give the public any great confidence in their own skill in falconry—are unlikely to suspend the regulations which expressly exclude hawkers from the precincts of the Cathedral. No doubt when the whole building is top-heavy with herons they will swallow their pride and resort to grouting. But grout they never so wisely, they can at best only postpone the collapse of the sacred fane as long as the herons keep on coming and sitting on it. The time for action is now. We shall not repeat this warning. *
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