vi BIBDS IN LONDON 



of the Temple Gardens rookery, and of Thomas 

 Pennant and his friend Daines Barrington, there 

 have never been wanting observers of the wild 

 bird life within our gates. The fact remains 

 that, with the exception of a few incidental 

 passages to be found in various ornithological 

 works, nothing was expressly written about 

 the birds of London until James Jennings's 

 ' Ornithologia ' saw the light a little over seventy 

 years ago. Jennings's work was a poem, 

 probably the worst ever written in the English 

 language ; but as he inserted copious notes, 

 fortunately in prose, embodying his own obser- 

 vations on the bird life of east and south-east 

 London, the book has a very considerable 

 interest for us to-day. Nothing more of impor- 

 tance appeared until the late Shirley Hibberd's 

 lively paper on ' London Birds ' in 1865. From 

 that date onward the subject has attracted an 

 increased attention, and at present we have a 

 number of London or park naturalists, as they 

 might be called, who view the resident London 

 species as adapted to an urban life, and who 

 chronicle their observations in the ' Field,' 



