Identifier: birdsinlondon00huds (find matches)
Title: Birds in London
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Hudson, W. H. (William Henry), 1841-1922
Subjects: Birds -- England London
Publisher: London, New York, Bombay, Longmans, Green and co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
anches, pluck the flowers; but allthis is purely the result of a kind of mentalintoxication. They are not barbarians or yahoos, as they are sometimes described byonlookers at the first opening of a nevy park;they are nothing more than excited young-people ; the excitement passes, and after a shorttime the damage ceases, and the place becomesso orderly, and so seldom is any damage done,that the park could almost l)e left to take careof itself. I am here tempted to relate two incidentswhich haye occurred at different times in onesmall open space—Clissold Park. Some tamerooks were kept with the ol)ject of establishinga rookery (of which more in a later chapter), andone day last year some young miscreants, whosubsequently made their escape, stoned three oftlie ))irds to death. The second incident rehatesto a chafliiicli .•iiid its nest. The nest wasbuilt on a stunted half-dead thorn-bush, very lowdown and miu-h exposed to siglit. Just nt thelime when the nest was being bnih some Ibrty
Text Appearing After Image:
NEST OF CHAFFINCH PBOTECTION OF BIRDS IN THE PARKS 281 or fifty labourers were called in and set to workto form a pond at this very spot, and it wasdetermined to leave a few yards of ground withthe thorn-ljush standing on it as an island in themiddle of the excavation. When the diggingbegan the first eggs had been laid in the nest, butin spite of the crowd of men at work every day andall day long round the bush, and the incessantnoises of loud talking and of shovelling clay intocarts and shouting of carters to their horses, thebirds did not forsake their task ; the eggs were alllaid, sat on, the young duly hatched and success-ful! v reared amidst the tumult; and durino allthis time the men engaged on the work were sojealous of the birds safety that they would notallow any of the numberless visitors to the parkto come near the bush to look closely at thenest. So long as the young were in the nestthe workmen were the chaffinchs bodyguard. Judging from personal knowledge of thepeople of

Note About Images