254 Bird-Life in London, 



Parks, and notably to those on the ornamental 

 water in St. James's Park. The so-called wild- 

 ducks, though a sadly mongrel-looking lot, are 

 excellent flyers, and are by no means chary of 

 exhibiting their powers, thereby adding greatly to 

 the pleasure of those who are fond of seeing birds 

 on the wing, and by their flight recalling to the 

 mind many a pleasant hour spent amid very diffe- 

 rent scenery in pursuit of their wild congeners. 

 They live in a semi-domesticated state in all the 

 Parks, free to come and go as suits their fancy, 

 but, being Londoners by birth and education, are 

 doubtless perfectly satisfied with their surround- 

 ings, and therefore seldom wander further than from 

 one sheet of water to another. St. James's Park, 

 however, can, in addition to the ducks which are 

 common to all the Parks, boast of an interesting 

 collection of water-fowl, worthy successors of the 

 King's wild-fowl, mentioned by Willughby as 

 existing there in his time. Among the most 

 interesting of the ducks which form part of this 

 collection, and have places in the list of British 

 birds, we may mention common and ruddy sheld- 

 ducks, shovellers, wigeon, pochards, red-crested 

 pochards of which there are a particularly beau- 

 tiful pair and tufted ducks, though these by no 

 means exhaust the list of ducks, not to mention the 

 geese and other fowl, which we do not propose to 

 particularise. Though these birds are pinioned, 

 and therefore Londoners against their wills, they 

 seem to thrive exceedingly. 



