LONDON'S LITTLE BIRDS 123 



killers are restrained, and the white specimen 

 is sometimes able to keep his life for a few or 

 even for several months. Eecently (1897) a 

 very beautiful white blackbird was to be seen 

 in Kensington Gardens, in the Flower Walk, 

 east of the Albert Memorial. He was the 

 successor to a wholly milk-white blackbird that 

 lived during the summer of 189-j in the shrub- 

 beries of Kensington Palace, and was killed 

 by some scoundrel, who no doubt hoped to sell 

 its carcass to some bird-stulFer. Its crushed 

 body was found by one of the keepers in a thick 

 holly-bush close to the public path ; the slayer 

 had not had time to sret into the enclosure to 

 secure his prize. 



The other bird had some black and deep 

 brown spots on his mantle, and a few inky black 

 tail and wing feathers — a beautiful Dominican 

 dress. But when I first saw him, rushing out 

 of a black holly-bush, one grey misty morning 

 in October, his exceeding whiteness startled me, 

 and I was ready to believe that I had beheld a 

 blackbird's ghost, when the bird, startled too, 

 emitted his prolonged chuckle, proving him to 

 be no supernatural thing, but only a fascinat- 

 ing freak of nature. He lived on, very much 



