come to remain, for its return every spring is now regular; it stayз on during the summer months to rear the brood in the floating nest of accumulated weeds, and to feed on the small fish fry of the ponds. On the approach of winter, in spite of their feeble powers of flight, the dabchicks take their departure for the running waters, probably of the Upper Thames and its backwaters, where there is no danger of their being frozen in in severe weather. I wonder if any Londoner watching these birds has ever seen them fly? It is not surprising that they never take to that form of escape from molestation, for their agility in diving and swimming beneath the water for considerable distances is ample compensation for their small and undeveloped wings.

The woodpigeon is another of the species that finds the protection of the parks and the easy acquisition of food to its benefit. It was not always with us. The colonisation movement evidently started from the appearance of a pair of birds in the Buckingham Palace gardens in 1883, and from that date onward they grew rapidly in numbers, attracting probably many of the birds that always were numerous in the open country just outside. At the present time they have spread to such an extent that they nest in the trees of the squares and gardens of Inner London, and often may the dweller in the Bloomsbury region awake in the early hours to the insistent cooing of the cushat:

The sound is like a breath of country air to the town dweller, and must awaken many an old memory of the green meadows and woodlands.

And what birds these London woodpigeons are-fat, sleek, and grimy compared with their rural relations! The old belief that the streets of London were paved with gold has brought many a Tom Tiddler into the city from the remote villages and towns, and the fact that the parks and open spaces are literally strewn with crumbs is just as strong an attraction to this shy country bird, shy everywhere except with us in the city. There are no dangers of lurking guns or hovering hawk; food at all seasons is easy to obtain, for it is often brought to them; and their nests, even when in the branches overhanging a busy street, are safe

from marauders, safe from weasel and polecat, and safe from the schoolboy raider. Food is not always so easily obtained in the country, and often the cushat has to subsist for a period on the ripened grass-seeds, the stalks of which are known as 'bents,' hence the proverbial saying:

Pigeons never do know woe
Until they do a-benting go.

But the woodpigeon in London knows no 'benting days.'

It is during those bright, invigorating days of spring that often burst suddenly in London after the seemingly long period of gloom of the murky, smoke-begrimed winter that one notices the smaller bird-dwellers in the parks and gardens. The starling, resplendent in its glossy plumage, which shows the rich metallic greens and purples in the bright sunshine, babbles and chatters more loudly

thrush rang out strong and clear above the more mellow note of the blackbird and weaker song of the song thrush. Though these

lovely songsters are to be seen and heard in our larger open spaces, they are not numerous, and probably never will be, for already they have

branch, as often as not clinging on with their little claws and swinging to and fro head downwards. If there are any of these little birds in the locality they are easily encouraged to visit

one regularly, for there is nothing they like better than to peck at a lump of fat, suet, or bacon rind, suspended on the end of a piece of string, or perhaps half a cocoanut, either fixed in a tree or else suspended like the fat. It is important to hang it up in this manner if one wishes to reserve the food for the tits alone; otherwise the predominant sparrows would swoop down in their legions and quickly dispose of any

such dainty long before the more delicate and shyer bird would be aware of its existSometimes the spar

ence.

rows will attempt to seize the suspended food, but usually all such attempts end ludicrously in ignominious

failure. It seems only natural, after all, that the sparrow should appear ludicrous when baffled; he is not often placed in such a position, and when he is, he does not understand it.

Persistency is the keynote of his nature all the world over, but the London variety, the loafers from the country as it were, who have invaded the great city on all sides, and who are so satisfied with the easy conditions of city life, the absence of sparrow clubs,