ST. JAMES’S & GREEN PARKS 73 
Rosamund’s Pond had, in the course of time, become 
stagnant and unpleasant, and there were frequent com¬ 
plaints of its unsavoury condition. About 1736 a machine 
for pumping out water was invented by a Welshman, 
and used successfully to empty the pond, and it was 
thoroughly cleansed. Thirty years later the same evil 
began again to be a nuisance, and it was decided to drain 
and fill up the pond entirely, which was accomplished 
about 1772. The trees on the island were felled, and 
those near the bank died from the lack of water, so at 
first the absence of the slimy pond must have been dis¬ 
figuring. The shady walk near it, known as the Close 
Walk or the Jacobites’ Walk, must have disappeared 
when the trees died. About the same time the swampy 
moat round Duck Island was filled up and the canal 
cleaned out. When these improvements were completed 
in 1775 some birds were put on the canal. One of them 
was a swan called Jack, belonging to Queen Charlotte, 
which was reared in the garden of Buckingham House. 
This bird ruled the roost for many a day, and was a 
popular favourite. It lived until 1840, when some 
new arrivals, in the shape of Polish geese, pecked and 
ill-treated the poor old bird so seriously that he died. 
About 1786 fashion began to desert the Mall for the 
Green Park, and the crowds which collected there were 
no longer intermingled with the Court circle. In a letter 
to her daughter Madame Roland describes the company 
in the Mall as very different from what it was a few years 
earlier, for though it was <c very brilliant on a Sunday 
evening, and full of well-to-do people and well-dressed 
women, in general they are all tradespeople and citizens.” 
A generation later the Mall seems to have become quite 
deserted. Sir Richard Phillips, in his morning’s walk 
