LONDON BIRDS IN JUNE 105 
Art and music and literature are a source of pure and intense 
enjoyment. But yet we are happy in the glorious faith, that 
Nature truly is 
“ Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found.” 
THE EGRET’S ROYAL CHARTER. 
Henceforth the milk-white heron shall have rest, 
No more the innocent cloud of wings need Hy — 
Too brave to leave their children tho’ they die, 
Too weak to plead with hands by greed possessed ; 
No more the brides by love and beauty dressed, 
’Reft of their plumes, in agony shall lie 
Helpless, and hear the unmothered nestlings cry 
And know they faint, sun-smitten on the nest. 
For she, our Queen of tenderness and grace, 
Takes with her royal will the poor bird’s part. 
Pride now, before her hecatombs of dead 
For murder's millinery, veils her face, 
Nor dares to deck with doom her wanton head, 
And heartless fashion finds at last a heart. 
H. D. Rawnsley. 
LONDON BIRDS IN JUNE. 
Y the end of May, the heyday of the London bird season 
is reached, and the eager ornithologist need not stir 
far from his dwelling in order to follow his study. A 
month ago, sharp eyes might have seen stray wheat- 
ears, willow wrens or redstarts on their migration journey, and 
well attuned ears might have heard at nightfall the faint cries 
of passing Hirundines and warblers. These experiences may be 
partly repeated in autumn. Thus, in the garden hard by, with 
1,400 trains passing the spot during the twenty-four hours, a 
returning chiffchaff sang tor some minutes one morning last 
September. But it is mainly to settlers and stragglers that 
one turns in June. 
A few records may serve to show what prizes may reward 
the enthusiast. The Archdeacon of London some time ago 
told the Society for the Protection of Birds that a cuckoo sang 
in Portman Square in 1899. For many years Mr. A. Holte 
Macpherson has compiled for Nature Notes a list of birds 
