A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XXI July— August, 1919 No. 4 



Nature and England 



By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



With Photographs liy the Author 



THE Red Cross mission which has claimed my service for the past eight 

 months, brought me, this past May, to London. England was still 

 returning from the war. The steamer on which I crossed the Channel 

 was crowded with homeward-bound troops; men and women in uniform formed 

 a large proportion of the street population. For years all their energy and prac- 

 tically every activity of their nation had been directly or indirectly devoted 

 toward the winning of the conflict which threatened the freedom of their 

 country. There had been no relaxation in the severity of the struggle; no rest 

 period between campaigns; the war had been one continuous battle. Now, for 

 the first May in five years, England was at peace and her people were free to 

 gratify their desire for recreation without fear of air-raid, or of submarine 

 disaster, and without anxiety for the safety of those at the front. 



With no thought whatever of giving even casual attention to the subject, 

 it required only three or four days, including a Saturday and Sunday, to impress 

 upon my mind a vivid picture of a war-weary nation finding its sources of rest, 

 refreshment, and pleasure out-of-doors. Scores were tilling their garden plots. 

 The Thames was alive with punts, rowboats, canoes, and shells; the gardens 

 at Hampton Court and the spacious grounds at Kew were thronged with 

 people who were evidently deriving keen enjoyment from the beauty of their 

 surroundings and from the opportunity they otTered for close contact with 

 nature. Hundreds of people strolled slowly over the velvet lawns as though 

 loath to miss a breath of the fragrance of sjjring or a note from the songs of 

 Chaffinch, Thrush, and Blackbird. Hundreds more were seated beneath the 

 trees or stretched upon the turf in complete abandonment to the sweet and 

 peaceful influences of a sunlit May day. One heard no shouting, no loud talk- 

 ing, no boisterousness; even the most devout nature worshii)er could tind here 

 no apparent lack of reverence for his temple or his gods. 



On a nearby common were rows of occupied tennis-courts and crocjuet 

 lawns; a small arm\- lu-ld the tri( kcl-tields and golf clubs an<l polo mallets 



