246 BIBDS IN LONDON 



is the yeUowhammer, and it strikes one as very 

 curious to hear his song in such a place. Why 

 does he stay ? Is he tempted by the httle bit of 

 bread and no cheese which satisfies his modest 

 wants — the small fragments dropped by the 

 numberless children that play among the bushes 

 after school hours ? The yellowhammer does 

 not colonise with us ; he goes and returns not, 

 and this is now the last spot in the metropolis 

 within four miles and a half of Charing Cross 

 where he may still be found. He was cradled 

 on the common, and does not know that there 

 are places on the earth where the furze-bushes 

 are unblackened by smoke, where at intervals 

 of a few minutes the earth is not shaken by 

 trains that rush thundering and shrieking, as if 

 demented, into or out of Clapham Junction. 



I fear the yellowhammer will not long 

 remain in such a pandemonium. The people 

 of Wandsworth are hardly deserving of such a 

 bird. 



Tooting Common is the general name for 

 two commons — Tooting Bee and Tooting 

 Graveney, 144 and 66 acres respectively. A 

 public road divides them, but they form really 



