128 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



in large numbers, and were perhaps most numer- 

 ous from London Bridge to Battersea, and dur- 

 ing this time they were watched every day by 

 thousands of Londoners with keen interest and 

 pleasure. The river here, flowing through the 

 very centre and heart of the greatest city of the 

 world, forms at all hours and at all seasons of 

 the year a noble and magnificent sight ; to my eyes 

 it never looked more beautiful and wonderful 

 than during those intensely cold days of January, 

 when there was nothing that one could call a mist 

 in a chilly, motionless atmosphere, but only a 

 faint haze, a pallor as of impalpable frost, 

 which made the heavens seem more white than 

 blue, and gave a hoariness and cloud-like remote- 

 ness to the arches spanning the water, and the 

 vast buildings on either side, ending with the sub- 

 lime dome of the city cathedral ; and when out of 

 the pale motionless haze, singly, in twos and 

 threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysteri- 

 ous white bird-figures, first seen like vague 

 shadows in the sky, then quickly taking shape and 

 whiteness, and floating serenely past, to be suc- 

 ceeded by others and yet others. 



It was not merely the ornithologist in me that 



