MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 193 



enemies. It may be true that gulls are seen on 

 the Serpentine, that woodcocks are flushed in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to 

 his office in the morning and returns after the 

 lamps have been lighted, does not see them, and 

 they are nothing in his life. Those who concern 

 themselves to chronicle such incidents might just 

 as well, for all that it matters to him, mistake 

 their species, like that bird-loving but unornitho- 

 logical correspondent of the Times who wrote 

 that he had seen a flock of golden orioles in 

 Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what he 

 had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a 

 little on their imaginations, and tell of sunward- 

 sailing cranes encamped on the dome of St. Paul's 

 Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great 

 snowy owls in Westminster Abbey, and an ibis — 

 scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to fancy — 

 perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Ex- 

 change. 



But his winter does not last for ever. When 

 the bitter months are past, with March that mocks 

 us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun 

 shines, and the rain is soon over; and elms and 

 limes in park and avenue, and unsightly smoke- 



