BIRDS'-NESTS IN LONDON. WONDER," writes Bewick to a friend in
London, "how you can think of toiling yourself to the end of the chapter, and let the opportunity slip of contemplating at your ease the beauties of Nature For my part, I am still of the same mind that I was in when in London, and that is, I would rather be herding sheep on Michley Bank top than remain in London, though for doing so I were to be made Premier of England." It can hardly be thought that what remains of wild life in London to-day can offer more to console the town-imbedded countryman than it did to Bewick in 1803. But it is a fact that enough of the old bird-residents still remain in the districts under the sway of the London County Council to occupy and amuse a competent observer, with the added interest that nowhere is the leading motive in bird-life, which we inadequately describe as "attachment to locality," better shown than by the constant and courageous efforts which they yearly make to maintain this principle by building their nests in London.
Though many birds which are often seen in the central parks in winter or during the migration, no longer stay to nest in the old trees or round the lakes, nothing short of the com- plete destruction of their ancient breeding-grounds, and the occupation of their site by houses and streets, avails to drive some of the larger and rarer kinds from the circuit of what is now called "Greater London ;" and in those where by accident or the caprice of fashion portions of land have been left only partly built upon and still in some measure enclosed, these " aborigines " bold their own, and yearly bring up their young, clinging to the old ground with that marked attachment to a particular spot which in rural districts has often transferred to some crag or mere the names of the birds which have haunted it for centuries. Although the London ravens are no longer trapped by the warreners of Middlesex and Surrey, as they were in 1768 by "Robert Smith, Ratca.tcher to the Princess Amelia," who distinguished them from the country ravens by the foulness of their plumage, "occasioned by their wallowing in the dirt," there still exists a flourishing colony of carrion-crows—not rooks, but real carrion-crows, with all the predatory and unsocial habits of their unamiable family— within a short mile of the progressive and populous but most unpleasing urban centre, Hammersmith Broadway. Their main stronghold is in the thickly wooded grounds of Chiswick House, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, where four or five pairs always build. One pair, bolder than the rest, have for years maintained their ancient nesting-place in a group of very large elms in a meadow near the river, and generally succeed, by using the utmost care and cunning, in bringing up their brood. The nest was this year built in March, and was plainly visible from the road, as well as the old nests of the two previous years, one of which was placed in the same tree, but higher from the ground. In April the old bird was sitting, and in May the young were hatched. In feeding them daring the day, the parents showed the greatest caution, never approaching the nest from the side on which the road runs, except in the very early morning and late in the evening. During midday they brought food only from the side of the river where there is no path, and the meadow is protected by a deep tidal ditch. Now that the young crows have flown, the whole family haunt the river-side early in the morning, generally beginning the day by a careful inspection of the grassy banks of the large reservoirs which lie on the right shore of the Thames from Hammersmith Bridge to Chiswick Ferry. After hunting the reservoir-banks, they search the mud and shingles left bare by the tide in the river-bed, and then often cross the water, and sit in the old trees of Hammersmith Mall, where they may often be heard cawing and croaking from 6 until 8 in the morning. These river-side crows will sometimes take food from the surface of the water ; during the past week, the writer saw one circle gracefully over the stream, and then descend on a small dead fish, which it carried to two full-grown young ones on the towpath.
It is difficult to see why the magpie has almost disappeared front London, while the crow holds its own. Probably the last pair remain and nest in the grounds of Holland House. Two were sitting on the railings opposite the terrace last autumn, among a number of rooks and jackdaws, and one was certainly in the park daring the spring. Now that Holland Park is to be preserved, it may be hoped that these birds, as well as the rooks and jackdaws, will be carefully protected. Absence of suitable food is an often forgotten cause of bird-depopulation in towns. Probably there would be far more woodpigeons and stockdoves in the parks but for this difficulty. Pigeons do not live on grass, or thrive on the bread which is so liberally given to the water-fowl and sparrows; and though three or four pairs do build in Hyde Park and St. James's Park, they would probably increase rapidly if a few peas and beans were thrown down daily in the morning for their support. In "Greater London," by the river and among the market-gardens, there is no difficulty in finding food, and chaffinches and greenfinches, whitethroats and willow-wrens, blackbirds and thrushes, build freely. Near the river between Hammersmith and Chiswick, the sandpiper, wild duck, and kingfisher have nested more than once in the past three years. In 1889, a family of young kingfishers spent some days on the willows which border the towpath below Chiswick Eyot. It is not probable that they were hatched on the river- bank itself, as the tide often rises level with the towpath; but the reservoir-bank close by was a spot suitable for the nest. At the other end of the line of reservoirs, a sandpiper built for two years, and the writer has seen the old birds during the present summer. A wild duck brings off a brood yearly, either in the grounds of Chiswick House or by the side of a tidal ditch which runs from Chiswick House to the river, and skirts the meadow where the carrion-crow built. Last year and the year before, the young birds used to fly every evening at "fighting-time" towards Kew during the first evenings in August; and though it is as yet too early in the year for the young to fly, the old bird has been seen passing to and fro more than once. Owls, both white and brown, build at Chiswick also, for, though the writer has not found their nests, the birds of both kinds may be heard in the spring evenings; and during the sum- mer nights they have a regular " beat " in their hunt for rats and mice along the river-side, and occasionally they sit and call in the old trees on Hammersmith Mall on still nights, when the river-side is vexed neither by Socialist oratory nor the Salvation Army drum. Swallows and martins, which seem to have almost deserted London proper, nest under the iron railway-bridge at Barnes; and during two very cold days at the beginning of July, assembled in large flocks in the willows by the reservoirs, as if for migration. The reason for their desertion of their more central haunts is probably the failure of their proper food, rather than owing to any dis- turbance of their nests,—paved roads, covered streams and ditches, concrete, asphalt, and river-embankments must lessen the supply of gnats and flies, while the smoke above the city probably kills the gossamer spiders which float so mysteriously in the lower currents of air; and no amount of protection is likely to bring the swallows back again.
But in the case of most of our resident birds, there should be no difficulty in maintaining a food-supply for their use ; and if only suitable nesting-ground exists, which the new movement in favour of the preservation of open spaces and the planting of trees is in a fair way to secure, there is no reason why nearly all the indigenous English birds should not live and rear their young in London, if they are properly pro- tected. Their strong local attachment which maintains them still in such places as the river-reaches above Hammersmith, only wants encouragement to bring them back to our parks and squares ; and, when once protected in a city, wild birds show such "adaptation to environment" that they become as urban and unconcerned by their noisy surroundings as the human dwellers in the city. An admirable instance of what can be done in this way may be seen any day in the little oasis in Hyde Park where the Serpentine stream flows out at the back of the bridge. There, among the thick patches of Osmunda fern, wild hemlock, and meadowsweet, or on the short grass, water-hens and their young, woodpigeons, half- wild ducks, and sparrows innumerable live, bathe, feed, and enjoy themselves within a few feet of the path; and there seems no reason why the same measure of protection should not be extended to birds in all open spaces in London. A few pairs of magpies in Kensington Gardens would not work too much destruction among the wild ducks' eggs by the Serpentine, and an occasional kingfisher would give an added interest to a walk by the Serpentine or the pond in St. James's Park. Owls might exist in any numbers in the hollow trees in the parks, if bird-nesting were strictly stopped, for the parks and ponds swarm with rats and mice, and trees which are inhabited by owls are suited for the stockdoves too. If any one doubts whether wild birds will nest in London when properly protected, he may see at the Zoo four or five nests of the night-heron, and as many of the black-headed gull, in which the birds sit with the utmost indifference to- passers-by.
If the County Council, in addition to preserving open spaces and planting them, could provide that not only the- birds but their nests and young should be secured from injury, as they are at Kew Gardens, where even the sparrow- hawk finds an asylum for its nest, countrymen and naturalists might find London less uncongenial than it appeared to Be wick..
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