CHAPTER I 



LONDON BIRDS 



' Tis always morning somewhere, and above 

 The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 

 Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.' LONGFELLOW. 



WE are so accustomed to associate birds ' the smiles 

 of creation ' with all that is wild and fresh, and 

 pleasant, and unlike a great town, that to speak of the 

 birds of London sounds rather like talking nonsense. 

 It is, however, one great advantage which an ornitho- 

 logist has over most other lovers of natural history, 

 that there are few places in which he cannot find 

 something in his own particular line to interest him, 

 unless it is in countries where Robins and Tomtits 

 have been too long marketable delicacies, and where, 

 as in some parts of the Continent, woods and planta- 

 tions are dying off in consequence lands that have 

 slaughtered the innocents, ' smitten with worms.' 

 Longfellow's simile is much too good to be given up 

 merely because, as commentators tell us, the King 

 who died on his throne as he made a speech to the 

 people, was not the Herod who killed the babes of 

 Bethlehem and added Childermas Day to the Calendar, 

 but a nephew and namesake only, 

 A 



