BIRDS FOE LONDON 309 



young birds in the nests could be had within 

 five or six miles of Holland House. 



Another more promising plan is to get the 

 young birds and rear them in the park where 

 they are wanted. This plan has already been 

 recently tried, not by any person of means, but 

 by a humble park sergeant at Clissold Park. 

 Sergeant Kimber is an interesting man, and 

 deserves to be highly thought of by all bird- 

 lovers in London ; he has during most of his 

 life been a gamekeeper, but knows a great deal 

 more about birds and loves them better than 

 most men who have that vocation. With the 

 permission of the County Council, he obtained 

 about a dozen young rooks from the country ,- 

 some from Yorkshire and others from Wales ; 

 the birds were placed in an enclosure with a 

 good-sized tree growing in it with branches 

 drooping to the ground, so that they were able 

 to ascend and descend at pleasure. Unfortu- 

 nately their wing feathers were cut, which pre- 

 vented them from learning to fly for about a 

 year ; even after two years the survivors are still 

 unable to fly as well as wild birds. Six birds 

 remained up to the spring of 1897 ; one 

 only of these appeared to be a male. This 



