290 BIBDS IN LONDON 



the parks at all seasons, but particularly in 

 winter, ailing sparrows are not very rare ; 

 occasionally a dead one is seen. 



The duck and the drake 

 Are there at his wake, 



but the cat comes not in the daylight hours to 

 bury him. When the young park sparrows 

 flutter down from their high nests there is no 

 enemy lying in wait : they get their proper 

 exercise, and in short flights over the turf learn 

 the use of their wings ; in the evening they go 

 back to their hollow tree or inaccessible nest. 

 When they are asleep in their safe cradles the 

 cats come on the scene to hunt in the shrub- 

 beries, to capture the thrush, blackbird, robin, 

 dunnock, and wren, and in fact any bird that 

 nests in low bushes or on the ground. The 

 noisy clang of the closing park gates is a sound 

 well known to the cats in the neighbourhood ; 

 no sooner is it heard than they begin to issue 

 from areas and other places where they have 

 been waiting, and in some spots as many as half 

 a dozen to a dozen may be counted in as many 

 minutes crossing the road and entering the park 

 at one spot. They can go in anywhere, but cats 



