LONDON BIRDS 31 



the Commissioner of Customs for the Port of London, 

 had only lately written The Assembly of Foules, wrote 

 ' there are those who, instigated by a malignant spirit, 

 are busy to injure more than to profit, and throw from 

 a distance and hurl stones, arrows, and various kinds 

 of darts at the crows, pigeons, and other kinds of birds 

 building their nests and sitting on the walls and open- 

 ings of the church, and in doing so break the glass 

 windows and stone images of the said church.' 



There is a legend that a hole was once neatly drilled 

 in a window, and a bullet embedded in a book-case, 

 within a few feet of the head of a high dignitary of 

 Her late Majesty's Civil Service, by a sporting young 

 gentleman, who took a flying shot with a saloon 

 pistol at a Pigeon in the quadrangle of Somerset 

 House. 



The Wood Pigeons are probably the only wild 

 species of the Gallinacece the ' Poultry ' order to which 

 most of our gamebirds belong common in London; 

 but not long ago there was one very fine fellow to be 

 seen in St. James's Park who deserves special mention. 

 He was a cross between a cock Pheasant and a common 

 Hen, and had very nearly the head and neck of his 

 father, with a half- dock tail ; and could fly, if occasion 

 required it, like a genuine rocketer. 



In the next order, the ' Waders,' we have Moorhens 

 and Coots in plenty. In St. James's Park they are 

 tame, and will scramble with the Ducks for bread 

 from the bridge ; but their habits are more natural in 

 the Long Water. There one may watch them paddling 



