Ax URBAN SANCTUARY.
A very, very small garden in the north-west of London is populous, according to the census of its proprietor, with grey squirrels, and many birds that have included tits, wrens, owls, woodpeckers, finches and redwings. Among the crowd appeared one day a single female magpie. She is amenable to bribery by bits of meat, and reappears generally in company with two crows. A magpie in such a place is singular, and a solitary magpie—if I may say so—altogether singular. But I can parallel the experience. A lady who used regularly to feed birds just behind the Knightsbridge Barracks had a single magpie as her most constant pensioner. Such an appearance is a mystery ; but more and more birds come up to London, especially carrion crows. A magpie would not mate with them ; but there is often a certain friendliness between different species of the crow tribe. Incidentally, some of them are conspicuously monogamous.
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