24 London Birds. 



1884, and that in May of the same year a Dunlin had 

 been seen feeding by the Serpentine. 



Passing on to the sixth and last order, the web- 

 footed, the ornamental waters in the parks are so 

 well stocked with the different breeds of Ducks, 

 that it is impossible to say to what extent they are 

 frequented by genuine wild fowl. There is no 

 doubt, though, that the number of occasional 

 visitants is considerable ; and, of those who are 

 permanently quartered on the Serpentine, many fly 

 strongly, and are, to all intents and purposes, wild 

 birds. 



Unlike most of us, their hours in London and the 

 country are much the same. Flighting time just as 

 the last remains of the blurred red and blue which 

 gives its peculiar picturesqueness to sunset in a big 

 town is fading in the fog is their favourite exercise 

 time ; and one may stand on the Serpentine bridge 

 almost any autumn evening, and listen to Mallard 

 and Widgeon whistling overhead, till, with a very 

 small stretch of imagination, the Long Water 

 becomes a tidal harbour, and the distant roar of 

 Oxford Street changes into the break of the sea 

 outside the sandhills. 



In St. James's Park alone, besides black and white 

 Swans, and ten sorts of Geese four of them English : 

 Brent, Bean, White-fronted, and Bernicle there are, 

 or were, a very few years ago, not less than nineteen 

 or twenty distinct species of Ducks, with five or six 

 crosses, including one beautiful one between the 

 exquisite little Carolina and red-headed Pochard. 

 About two-thirds are British, ranging in rarity from 

 the Widgeon and Pochards which still swarm in 

 winter in the ponds and runlets in many parts of the 

 coast to the castaneous Ducks and delicately- 



