64 
NATURE NOTES. 
which was stopped by his orders ? Who planted the “ ob- 
noxious trees ” ? Do the workmen act on their own initiative ? 
If so, why is the Heath left to their fancies : if not, who gives 
them their instructions ? 
It must not be supposed that in making these remarks we are 
actuated by any feeling of unfriendliness towards the London 
County Council. We gladly admit that in many quarters — 
e.g., Battersea Park, though exception niay be taken to the 
keeping of birds in cages there — they have done much to in- 
crease the enjoyment of the public. But Hampstead Heath is 
not an artificial park, and must not be treated as such. If the 
London County Council likes to delight itself by making mur- 
muring cascades (to the number of sixteen), tiny lakes, and 
rustic bridges in a newly acquired strip of land, it seems hard 
to grudge them an amusement in which even the gutter urchins 
are enabled to indulge after a heavy shower of rain, materially 
aided in their sport by the thoughtful kindness of the vestries, 
who carefully stop up the water channels with mud heaps 
during any rainy period. It might be contended that the 
money spent in laking and cascading would be better ex- 
pended on the Embankment Gardens; but that is a detail. 
It should, however, be made clear that when Colonel Sexby 
wants to play at landscape gardening, he must select some 
place other than Hampstead Heath for indulging in the 
amusement. 
The Editor. 
BIRDS— YOUNG AND OLD. 
was on a hot afternoon in June last year, when red 
roses were clustering over the lattice work, that 1 
watched a hen-chaffinch perching by a full-blown rose; 
bending towards it, she dipped her lieak into its midst, 
with no intent, however, of inhaling the sweetness, for she 
drew out a fat green caterpillar, and flewoffi with it to her nest in 
a tree. Her mate had already brought one of the young ones to 
display to me, and soon after this the brood was safely out. 
Young chaffinches were later last year than I ever remember, 
owing to the delay in building consetjuent on the long frost. But 
every day in the end of June brought more young birds about, 
till the air was full of infantine chirpings, amongst which it was 
easy to distinguish that peculiar chirruping which proclaims the 
fact that another young chaffinch has achieved the art of swal- 
lowing. They were all around us — young chaffinches opening 
wide their beaks, and parent birds stuffing down the inexperienced 
From notes liikcn in the summer of 1895. 
