NATURE NEAR LONDON 



tricts to which I had been accustomed before I 

 made these observations I cannot recollect ever 

 seeing such vast numbers of birds. There were 

 places, of course, where they were numerous, and 

 there were several kinds more represented than is 

 the case here, and some that are scarcely repre- 

 sented at all. I have seen flocks of wood-pigeons 

 immensely larger than any here; but then it was 

 only occasionally. They came, passed over, and 

 were gone. Here the flocks, though not very 

 numerous, seem always to be about. 



Sparrows crowd every hedge and field, their 

 numbers are incredible ; chaffinches are not to be 

 counted ; of greenfinches there must be thousands. 

 From the railway even you can see them. I 

 caught glimpses of a ploughed field recently sown 

 one spring from the window of a railway carriage, 

 every little clod of which seemed alive with small 

 birds, principally sparrows, chaffinches, and green- 

 finches. There must have been thousands in that 

 field alone. In autumn the numbers are even 

 greater, or rather more apparent. 



One autumn some correspondence appeared la- 

 menting the scarcity of small birds (and again in 

 the spring the same cry was raised) ; people said 

 that they had walked along the roads or footpaths 

 and there were none in the hedges. They were 

 quite correct the birds were not in the hedges, 

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