244 BIRDS IN LONDON 



which is not green nor of any other colour 

 found in nature, this expanse of grass, if they 

 had it within reach, would be an unspeakable 

 boon, and seem to their weary eyes like a field 

 in paradise. But Clapham is not over-crowded ; 

 it is a place of gardens full of fluttering leaves, 

 and the exceeding monotony of its open space, 

 set round with conspicuous houses, must cause 

 those who live near it to sigh at the thought of 

 its old vanished aspect when the small boy 

 Thomas Babington Macaul^y roamed over its 

 broken surface, among its delightful poplar 

 groves and furze and bramble bushes, or hid 

 himself in its grass-grown gravel-pits, the world 

 forgetting, by his nurse forgot. These grateful 

 inequalities and roughnesses have been smoothed 

 over, and the ancient vegetation swept away 

 like dead autumn leaves from the velvet lawns 

 and gravel walks of a trim suburban villa. 

 When this change was effected I do not know : 

 probably a good while back. To the Clapham- 

 ites of the past the furze must have seemed 

 an unregenerate bush, and the bramble some- 

 thing worse, since its recurved thorns would 

 remind them of an exceedingly objectionable 

 person's finger-nails. As for the yellowhammer, 



