THE MAGPIE IN LONDON.
J'To THE EDITOR Or THE " BPECTATOR,"] SIR,—The letters of your correspondents Messrs. Garnett and Stanford in your issue of May nth reveal the interesting fact that two, if not three, pairs of magpies now reside in London. One pair (old residents) have built a nest in St. James's Park ; another pair, Mr. Garnett tells us, have nested this year in Hyde Park ; and a pair (possibly the Hyde Park pair, but also possibly a third pair) have been seen, according to Mr. Stanford, in Kensington Gardens. Pace Mr. Garnett, I hope the Park custodians will not give these handsome and interesting birds (and the carrion crows) notice to quit. The magpies have resided for some years past in St. James's Park, and I have noticed no diminution in the numbers of wood- pigeons, thrushes, blackbirds, and robins. Indeed, if Mr. Hudson's book on London birds is to be relied on as describing the state of things about ten years ago, those birds have actually increased in number. The real enemies, of the small birds at any rate, are the London sparrow, which mercilessly mobs every bright-coloured small bird that ventures into St. James's Park, and the ubiquitous and nocturnal London oat. • The corvidac are among the most intellectual and interesting of the bird tribe, and they ought to be welcomed in London.. It is a continual source of wonder to me why the jackdaw is never seen in London (except in Kensington Gardens), whereas he resides and flourishes in every other town in Europe that I • know of, from Paris downwards, where in the morning sun- . light he makes music on the Opera House. The hooded crow—rare, so far as I have observed, in the South-East of England, and unknown in London—is to be seen in numbers in the Bois de Boulogne, Why not in London P—I am,
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