LONDON BIRDS 13 



sticks, and, as he flew away with a low chuckle, the 

 Jackdaw apparently, from the attention paid to her, 

 the hen bird looked out from within to see what was 

 the matter. 



The species are closely allied, both being members of 

 the great family of the 'Corvidae.' But if the union 

 had, as at one time seemed possible, been blessed with 

 offspring, it would, so far as could be learnt, have been 

 a first record of a hybrid between the two, and Londoners 

 might next have expected to see the marriage of Cock 

 Robin and Jenny Wren translated for their benefit from 

 nursery rhyme to natural history. No eggs, however, 

 were laid, and after amusing themselves by playing at 

 housekeeping for several weeks, the birds tired of the 

 game, and parted to carry on their evil practices as 

 egg-stealers separately. 



Curiously enough, on the publication of a letter in 

 The Times telling the story, a communication was 

 received by the writer from a country clergyman, who 

 had been interested in watching precisely the same 

 thing in his own neighbourhood. There, too, as he 

 afterwards wrote, no practical results followed. 



A more successful and even more interesting ' mixed 

 marriage' was noticed in the same park two years 

 later, when a Ruddy Sheldrake paired with an Egyptian 

 Goose and reared two young ones. 



Classifications, essential as they are for scientific 

 study, are at best human inventions, and necessarily 

 more or less arbitrary. There are no hard and fast 

 lines in Nature. The Sheldrake and Egyptian Goose 



