246 BIRDS IN LONDON 



is the yellowhammer, and it strikes one as very 

 curious to hear his song in such a place. Why 

 does he stay ? Is he tempted by the little bit of 

 bread and no cheese which satisfies his modest 

 wants the small fragments dropped by the 

 numberless children that play among the bushes 

 after school hours ? The yellowhammer does 

 not colonise with us ; he goes and returns not, 

 and this is now the last spot in the metropolis 

 within four miles and a half of Charing Cross 

 where he may still be found. He was cradled 

 on the common, and does not know that there 

 are places on the earth where the furze-bushes 

 are unblackened by smoke, where at intervals 

 of a few minutes the earth is not shaken by 

 trains that rush thundering and shrieking, as if 

 demented, into or out of Clapliam Junction. 



I fear the yellowhammer will not long 

 remain in such a pandemonium. The people 

 of Wandsworth are hardly deserving of such a 

 bird. 



Tooting Common is the general name for 

 two commons Tooting Bee and Tooting 

 Graveney, 144 and 66 acres respectively. A 

 public road divides them, but they form really 



