78 BIRDS IN LONDON 



east or west. After rambling about for some 

 three or four hours, I came to a vast wooded 

 place where few persons were about. It was a 

 wet, cold morning in early May, after a night 

 of incessant rain ; but when I reached this 

 unknown place the sun shone out and made the 

 air warm and fragrant and the grass and trees 

 sparkle with innumerable raindrops. Never 

 grass and trees in their early spring foliage 

 looked so vividly green, while above the sky 

 was clear and blue as if I had left London 

 leagues behind. As I advanced farther into 

 this wooded space the dull sounds of traffic be- 

 came fainter, while ahead the continuous noise of 

 many cawing rooks grew louder and louder. I 

 was soon under the rookery listening to and 

 watching the birds as they wrangled with one 

 another, and passed in and out among the trees 

 or soared above their tops. How intensely black 

 they looked amidst the fresh brilliant green of 

 the sunlit foliage ! What wonderfully tall trees 

 were these where the rookery was placed ! It 

 was like a wood where the trees were self- 

 planted, and grew close together in charming 

 disorder, reaching a height of about one hundred 

 feet or more. Of the fine sights of London so 



