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 Medirias 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 



193 



