io6 
NATURE NOTES 
annually seen by himself in London. Taking such a house- 
locked oasis as Lincoln’s Inn, we find that it was visited in 1889 
by a jay and a yellow-hammer, in 1892 by a willow wren, in 
1894 ar, d 1896 by a chaffinch, and most notable of all, in 1897 
by a nightingale. A competent observer had a quail in his 
Kilburn garden during the whole of a May afternoon in 1899, a 
second ornithologist saw two green woodpeckers in Cadogan 
Gardens, whilst a third, an old French chef, noticed a wheatear 
on Clapham Common. “ I know it well, sir, it is a fine bird 
for the table, believe me, it is second only to the ortolan.” 
“For the table,” alas! but how can we argue, when such a 
naturalist as John Burroughs says: “First find your bird; 
observe its ways, its song, its calls, its flight, its haunts ; then 
shoot it (do not ogle it with a glass), and compare it with 
Audubon ? ” Excellent advice if it stopped at the word 
“ haunts.” 
A fortnight ago came the news that a blue tit was building 
in a lamp-post in a street near Wandsworth Common. The 
householders there can now hear the morning song which 
Morris’s schoolboy declared was a line from the Latin grammar, 
“ Me, te, se, praeter que re re.” Not at all uncommon is the 
blue tit’s greater cousin, the black-throated, lemon-breasted 
great tit, whose piercing, swinging notes recall the sharpening 
of a saw. Almost any evening he may be heard in the shrub- 
beries on the south side of Clapham Common. Indeed, this 
oold bird once visited the same garden where the chiffchaff 
nested awhile. If we care to go a little further afield, other 
iarities are awaiting us. Shall we cross to Hyde Park to look 
for the reed warbler and wood wren, or to Greenwich to see the 
sedge warbler and kingfisher ? If we care to journey to 
Chingford, we may find the golden crested wren. Nearer, at 
Wimbledon Common, the nightingale may be heard continually, 
the blackcap and garden warbler sing by the mere, troops of 
long-tailed tits pass by the Beverley brook, and at night the goat- 
sucker purrs and “ through the still gloom protracts his chatter- 
ing song.” In which particular corner half a score goldfinches 
were lately seen shall not be told, but of the breeding place of 
sand-martins near the station at Clapham Junction there need 
be no mystery ; no stranger is permitted on the line to pry into 
the holes in the masonry of the embankment. 
Even in the parks, not many nests are accessible to the town 
resident, for most birds prefer quiet nooks where the public may 
not wander. When nests are found, we should determine the 
species of owner by those alone. If eggs are present, all the 
better, the matter is settled. But if these conditions are not 
available, we must identify the bird by its flight, its shape, its 
colour, its cry and song. How many Londoners, for instance, 
have noticed that the cock sparrow has a black throat, and a 
narrow white streak over each eye, adornments which are want- 
ing in his mate ? Or, who, witnessing the figured flight of birds 
