MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 



THE sparrow, like the poor, we have always 

 with us, and on windy days even the large-sized 

 rook is blown about the murkiness which does 

 duty for sky over London; and on such occasions 

 its coarse, corvine dronings seem not unmusical, 

 nor without something of a tonic effect on our 

 jarred nerves. And here the ordinary Londoner 

 has got to the end of his ornithological list that 

 is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing about 

 those wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" 

 to the metropolis the pilgrims to distant Meccas 

 and Medinas that have fallen, overcome by weari- 

 ness, at the wayside; or have encountered storms 

 in the great aerial sea, and lost compass and 

 reckoning, and have been lured by false lights to 

 perish miserably at the hands of their cruel 



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