34 BIRDS IN LONDON 



of these visitors to the park on any autumn or 

 winter morning, when he will allow you to come 

 quite near to the leafless tree on which he is 

 perched, to stand still and admire his massive 

 raven-like beak and intense black plumage 

 glossed with metallic green, as he sits flirting 

 his wings and tail, swelling his throat to the size 

 of a duck's egg, as, at intervals, he pours out a 

 succession of raucous caws the cry of a true 

 savage, and the crow's ' voice of care,' as 

 Chaucer called it. 



The crow is, in fact, the grandest wild bird 

 left to us in the metropolis ; and after corre- 

 sponding and conversing with a large number 

 of persons on the subject, I find that in London 

 others most persons, I believe admire him as 

 much as I do, and are just as anxious that he 

 should be preserved. It may be mentioned here 

 that in two or three of the County Council's 

 parks the superintendents protect and take pride 

 in their crows. Why, then, should these few 

 birds, which Londoners value, be destroyed in the 

 royal parks for fear of the loss of a few ducklings 

 out of the hundreds that are annually hatched 

 and reared ? 



The ducks in the Serpentine are very 



