36 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



WILD ANIMALS AND CIVILIZATION. 



By John T. Carrington. 



'HPHERE is at present on a branch of a plane- 

 tree overhanging the footpath opposite the 

 Junior Constitutional Club and No. ioo, Piccadilly, 

 in London, the nest of a pair of wood-pigeons which 

 last year successfully reared therein one brood of 

 young birds. This is not a solitary case of these 

 usually wild and shy birds building by the side of 

 the constant traffic in the street beneath the nests ; 

 for there is another nest in a tree by the rails, 

 opposite No. 115, also in Piccadilly. The birds 

 are in no way disturbed by the tens of thousands of 

 omnibuses and other vehicles, nor by the hundreds 

 of thousands of people daily passing within a score 

 or two of feet away. 



Such an incident suggests some thoughts of the 

 effect of man's civilization upon the wild fauna and 

 flora of any particular country. A little investiga- 

 tion soon shows that not only does man uncon- 

 sciously alter the habits of some wild animals by 

 aid of the arts and devices necessary to his life, but 

 his civilization may even be the cause of certain 

 types so altering as to look like entirely different 

 species. 



In a state of freedom where we usually expect to 

 find wood-pigeons, they are very wild. Sportsmen 

 know that only by patient watching at the side of 

 a wood, towards dusk of evening, or by decoys, can 

 they get within range of many of these birds. Still, 

 here we have a case of others of the same species 

 quietly settling down to an urban life, compara- 

 tively free from risk or anxiety, building their nests 

 close to the haunts of men and producing offspring 

 which consort with the begrimed town sparrows. 

 It is no uncommon thing nowadays to see wood- 

 pigeons picking up bits of clover and other green 

 leaves in Parliament Square adjoining Westminster 

 Abbey. Mr. J. E. Harting tells me of an occasion 

 when a wood-pigeon was feeding on 

 the grass, surrounded by loiterers 

 and children at play, in Leicester 

 Square. Having procured a few 

 grains of corn, it fed readily as he 

 threw them. Suddenly it flew away, 

 and suspecting its mission, Mr. 

 Harting waited a few minutes for 

 its return, being rewarded by seeing 

 it come again accompanied by a 

 mate. Flocks of a dozen or more 

 may be daily found feeding in the 

 grass by the paths in St. James's 

 Park, where they breed freely, and 

 close to the public walks. Some 

 years ago I saw one of these birds 

 take corn from the hand of a gentle- 



man who used to feed the sparrows every morning in 

 the gardens opposite the Tuileries Palace in Paris. 

 During a recent residence in that city, I went on 

 many mornings to see the sparrows fed at the same 

 spot, not by the gentleman alluded to, who, like the 

 Palace, is no longer with us, but by a successor. 

 Again the wood-pigeons appeared, for there were 

 two of them. In the Bois de Bologne, which is 

 practically part of Paris, magpies are common and 

 tame. There must have been a time when the 

 ancestors of our impudent house-sparrows were 

 wild as any other of the finches. In the years 

 1874-5, I was staying for some months each 

 summer in a remote district of the Highlands of 

 Perthshire, where sparrows had not then penetrated. 

 Their place was occupied about such houses as 

 there were, by the chaffinches, which fed with the 

 domestic fowls and remained all day long, close to 

 the houses. 



Most of us have observed whilst travelling by 

 railway how unconcerned appear really wild birds 

 of many kinds as the train passes, with all its noise 

 and volumes of ejected steam. They show no fear 



