BE CENT COLONISTS 91 



with trees of a moderate size, where these birds 

 are not annual breeders. As the park trees no 

 longer afford them sufficient accommodation 

 they have gone to other smaller areas, and to 

 many squares and gardens, private and public. 

 Thus, in Soho Square no fewer than six pairs 

 had nests last summer. It was very pleasant, a 

 friend told me, to look out of his window on an 

 April morning and see two milk-white eggs, 

 bright as gems in the sunlight, lying in the frail 

 nest in a plane tree not many yards away. In 

 N'orth London these birds have increased greatly 

 during the last three years. Sixteen pairs bred 

 successfully in 1897 in Clissold Park, which is 

 small, and there were scores of nests in the neigh- 

 bourhood, on trees growing in private grounds. 

 Even in the heart of the smoky, roaring City 

 they build their nests and rear their young on 

 any large tree. To other spaces, where there 

 are no suitable trees, they are daily visitors ; and 

 lately I have been amused to see them come in 

 small flocks to the coal deposits of the Great 

 Western Eailway at Westbourne Park. What 

 attraction this busy black place, vexed with 

 rumbling, pufSng, and shrieking noises, can have 

 for them I cannot guess. These doves, when 



