Wild Life in London 87 



wild, while the unconfined are almost distressingly 

 domesticated. In Hyde Park, for instance, is a quaint 

 and curious angle. It is not at all sequestered, for it 

 is within a stone's-throw of Rotten Row and a near 

 neighbour to the Serpentine. The true Cockney sees 

 nothing wonderful in it. Here are pigeons ; but so 

 there are at St. Paul's and the British Museum, where 

 they are so tame you can scarce help trampling on 

 them. Yes, but these are true wood-pigeons, and 

 they fill the countryman with amazement. Go into 

 the fields and try to get within gunshot of one, and 

 you will know what it is to stalk the shyest and the 

 wariest of British birds. But these are as tame as the 

 tenants of a dovecot. Crumble a biscuit, and if you 

 stand still, and don't let them catch your eye they 

 will come close up, peck a morsel from your boot, 

 run between your legs, and be more confident than 

 the very sparrows the sparrows here so impudent ! 

 The hour is of little consequence. Just when it is 

 nesting time, the hens sit on the eggs all night, and 

 take an hour to themselves at dusk, when you shall 

 hardly catch sight of a male bird's finer burnish and 

 hear his thrilling note. But at other times he courts, 

 and fights, and coos on the grass or among the leafy 

 trees as happily as in a Highland forest. Yet the 

 only magic by which his wildness has been subdued 

 consists in an abundance of food and a great immunity 

 from disturbance (not perfect immunity, for White- 

 chapel has raided the nests more than once), quite 



