84 BIRDS IN LONDON 



majority of this population of five millions 

 London is a permanent home, the|r ' province 

 covered with houses ' where they spend their 

 toiling lives far from the sights and sounds of 

 nature ; that the conditions being what they are, 

 an open space is a possession of incalculable 

 value, to be prized above all others, like an 

 amulet or a thrice-precious gem containing 

 mysterious health-giving properties. He, then, 

 who takes from London one of these sacred 

 possessions, or who deprives it of its value by 

 .destroying its rural character, by cutting down 

 its old trees and driving out its bird life, inflicts 

 the greatest conceivable injury on the com- 

 munity, and is really a worse enemy than the 

 criminal who singles out an individual here and 

 there for attack, and who for his misdeeds is 

 sent to Dartmoor or to the gallows. 



We give praise and glory to those who 

 confer lasting benefits on the community ; we 

 love their memories when they are no more, and 

 cherish their fame, and hand it on from genera- 

 tion to generation. In honouring them we 

 honour ourselves. But praise and glory would 

 be without significance, and love of our bene- 

 factors would lose its best virtue, its peculiar 



