WOOD-PIGEONS 



BIRDS IN LONDON 



BIRD life in towns is proportionately much richer in winter 

 than in summer. Few spots in towns can provide even the 

 bolder and hardier species of birds with the privacy which 

 they require at the nesting-season, or a sufficient supply of 

 insect food for their young. On the other hand, towns in 

 winter are warmer than the open country, and are better 

 provided with many kinds of food. The scraps thrown out 

 from houses, whether accidentally or in deliberate charity to 

 the birds, are naturally more abundant ; and even in days 

 when motor traffic is so largely ousting the horse there is still 

 a good deal of corn to be picked up by pigeons and hard- 

 billed birds of the finch tribe in mews and stableyards and 

 about cab-ranks. 



The larger the town, the greater is the difference in the 

 richness of bird life at the different seasons ; and it is greatest 

 of all in London. There, for the last twenty years, the 

 winter birds have increased even more remarkably than the 

 summer birds have diminished. As the suburbs spread 

 annually wider and wider, the summer migrants seem less 

 and less inclined to penetrate their murky barrier into the 

 parks and gardens of the centre ; and for a long time past 

 the trees and undergrowth in their old haunts have been 



