46



On Birds in the London Barks.



the public delights in feeding with bread, so that these graceful birds

have become so confiding that they will take food from the hand,

settling on the walls of the Thames embankment, or flying backwards

and forwards in groups to catch morsels thrown to them.


They mingle with the ducks and geese on the waters, and

now look upon London as their definite home for the winter.


Occasionally a Budgerigar ora Bing-necked Parrakeet manages

to exist for a time in some London park, and it would be very

fascinating if Parrakeets of different species could be established,

seed being provided for them in different spots. An attempt was

made to do this with Australian Crested Doves, which were turned

out in the Zoological Gardens, but although some of them nested,

they gradually disappeared, probably down the maws of the London

cats for the most part.


Barbary Doves ought to be able to hold their own, provided

they were fed regularly, and their cooing in the trees on summer

days would greatly add to the attractions of the parks.


There are many Londoners, inhabitants of the great city from

necessity rather than choice, whose avicultural proclivities have to

find vent in the study and presence of the birds in the parks; men,

women, and children who, whilst longing for the song of the

nightingale, find solace and interest in other feathered folk which

are contented to treat London as a haven and an abode.


Of course, in parts of what is known as London, although we

have only been referring to the heart itself, one sees and hears other

birds which do not regularly live in the London parks; suburban

birds they might be called. There is no doubt that the increase of

bird life in the great metropolis during the last thirty years has

encouraged the public to think more about the birds, and those men

and women who are now grown up cannot but recall with happiness

the days when as children they fed the ducks, the portly Wood-

pigeons, and the Black-headed gulls. One remembers the old

gentleman in Hyde Park who every day, with much inward concen¬

tration and apparent oblivion to all humans about him, walked along

closely followed by a small cloud of sparrows. At intervals he

would halt, holding out an arm, on which a Wood-pigeon settled to

eat bread-crumbs from his hand, or else he found amusement in



