324 BIRDS IN LONDON 



account of their hardiness that they, or those 

 of them that have the best voices, are so much 

 sought after ; for they will live and be lively, 

 and sing, for a period of ten or a dozen years, 

 even in the miserable prison of a little cage in 

 which they are kept by those who love them. 



The excessive numbers of sparrows in the 

 parks, where, as we have seen, there is no natural 

 check on their increase, is a question difficult to 

 deal with, and no remedy that is not somewhat 

 unpleasant to think of has yet been tried or 

 suggested. In some of the parks the nests are 

 pulled down by the hundred ; but where this 

 plan is followed it is said to be of little avail, 

 owing to the energy and persistence of the birds 

 in making fresh nests. In other parks the birds 

 are, or have been, netted at night in the bushes, 

 where they roost in crowds. Poisoning the 

 sparrows has also probably been tried ; at all 

 events, in one park I have found the sparrows 

 looking sick and languishing, and many dead 

 birds lying about, as if an epidemic had broken 

 out among them ; but as no signs of disease 

 could be detected in the birds outside the park, 

 it could not very well have been an epidemic. 



Now since all these methods, which, like the 



