254 BIRDS IN LONDON 



two cemeteries on the common, using a good 

 many of its scanty 100 acres for the purpose. 

 What would be said if the Government were to 

 allow two cemeteries for the accommodation of 

 the parishes of Kensington and Paddington to 

 be made in the middle of Kensington Gardens ? 

 I fail to see that it is less an outrage to have 

 turned a portion of Barnes Common into hideous 

 walled round Golgothas, with mortuary chapels, 

 the ground studded with grave-stones and 

 filled with putrefying corpses. It is devoutly to 

 be hoped that before very long the people of 

 London will make the discovery that it rests 

 with themselves whether their house shall be 

 put in order or not ; and when that time comes 

 that these horrible forests of grave-stones and 

 monuments to the dead will be brushed 

 away, and that such bodies as the Barnes Con- 

 servators and the Fulham Vestry will for ever 

 be deprived of the powers they so lamentably 

 misuse. 



It would be difficult for any bird, big or 

 little, to rear its young on a space so unpro- 

 tected as this common ; many birds, however, 

 come to it, attracted by its open heath-like 

 character. Here the skylark and yellowhammer 



