THE BIRDS AND THE BOOK 15 



summer months, to that mhiute traDScript of 

 wild nature in Hyde Park at the spot called the 

 Dell, where t!ie Serpentine ends. They are 

 drawn thither by the birds — the multitude of 

 sparrows that gather to be fed, and the wood- 

 pigeons, and a few moorhens that live in the 

 rushes. 



' I call these my chickens, and I'm obliged 

 to come every day to feed them,' said a paralytic- 

 lookino' white-haired old man in the shabbiest 

 clothes, one evening as I stood there ; then, 

 taking some fragments of stale bread from his 

 pockets, he began feeding the sparrows, and 

 while doing so he chuckled with delight, and 

 looked round from time to time to see if the 

 others were enjoying the spectacle. 



To him succeeded two sedate-looking 

 labourers, big, strong men, with tired, dusty 

 faces, on their way home from work. Each 

 produced from his coat-pocket a little store of 

 fragments of bread and meat, saved from the 

 midday meal, carefully wrapped up in a piece 

 of newspaper. After bestowing their scraps on 

 the little brown-coated crowd, one spoke : 

 ' Come on, mate, they've had it all, and now let's 

 go home and see what the missus has got for 



