28 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



come in flocks, feeding on the newly sown grain when 

 they can get at it, and varying it with ivy berries, from 

 the ivy growing up the elms. By degrees the flocks 

 break up as the nesting begins in earnest. 



Some pair and build much earlier than others; in 

 fact, the first egg recorded is very little to be depended 

 on as an indication. Particular pairs (of many kinds of 

 birds) may have nests, and yet the species as a species 

 may be still flying in large packs. The flocks which 

 settle in these fields number from one to two hundred. 

 Rooks, wood-pigeons, and tame white pigeons often 

 feed amicably mixed up together ; the white tame birds 

 are conspicuous at a long distance before the crops 

 have risen, or after the stubble is ploughed. 



I should think that the corn farmers of Surrey lose 

 more grain from the birds than the agriculturists whose 

 tenancies are a hundred miles from London. In the 

 comparatively wild or open districts to which I had been 

 accustomed before I made these observations I cannot 

 recollect ever seeing such vast numbers of birds. There 

 were places, of course, where they were numerous, and 

 there were several kinds more represented than is the 

 case here, and some that are scarcely represented at all. 

 I have seen flocks of wood-pigeons immensely larger 

 than any here ; but then it was only occasionally. They 

 came, passed over, and were gone. Here the flocks, 

 though not very numerous, seem always to be about. 



Sparrows crowd every hedge and field, their numbers 

 are incredible ; chaffinches are not to be counted ; of 

 greenfinches there must be thousands. From the railway 

 even you can see them. I caught glimpses of a ploughed 

 field recently sown one spring from the window of a rail- 

 way carriage, every little clod of which seemed alive with 

 small birds, principally sparrows, chaffinches, and green- 



