272 BIRDS AND MAN 



the dozen moorhens and two or three hundred 

 mallards quietly sitting on the water below. 

 His speech ended, he rose up and flew slowly 

 away, pursued for a short distance by about 

 thirty impudent sparrows. The crow is our 

 grandest wild bird in London, and it is good to 

 see how persistently he haunts this park where 

 he is not allowed to breed. In some of the 

 other open spaces of inner London he has, this 

 year, succeeded in rearing a few broods. At 

 Battersea Park, where he is not molested, the 

 crow has frequently been seen dropping from 

 his tree to pick up dead fishes floating on the 

 lake. But his favourite haunt and breeding- 

 place is the woods on the south-western border 

 of London. The following incident will show 

 how numerous he is at this point. One evening 

 at the end of last winter, when walking with a 

 friend on the river-bank outside of Kew Gardens, 

 we counted fourteen crows in one party wheeling 

 round and round above the water, dropping at 

 intervals upon the surface to pick up some 

 floating substance on which they were feeding. 

 By and by three gulls came and joined them at 

 their fishing, and the similarity of action in 



