To return to the subject of the beautiful albino daws, and the numbers sometimes seen in our bird markets. One can only say that the monster London throws its nets over an exceedingly wide area, capturing all rare and quaint and beautiful things for its own delight. Thinking of these wonderful white daws, when I have cast up my eyes to the birdless towers and domes of our great London buildings, it has occurred to me to ask the following question: Is there not one among the many very wealthy men in London, who annually throw away hundreds of thousands of pounds on their several crazes—is there not one to give, say, fifty or sixty pounds per annum to buy up all these beautiful albinos, at the usual price of one or two guineas per bird, for three or four years, and establish a colony at Westminster, or other suitable place, where thousands of people would have great delight in looking at them every day? For it would indeed be a strange and beautiful sight, and many persons would come from a distance solely to see the milk-white daws soaring in the wind, as their custom is, above the roofs and towers; and he who made such a gift to London would be long and very pleasantly remembered.
CHAPTER V
EXPULSION OF THE ROOKS
Positions of the rook and crow compared—Gray’s Inn Gardens rookery—Break-up of the old, and futile attempt of the birds to establish new rookeries—The rooks a great loss to London—Why the rook is esteemed—Incidents in the life of a tame rook—A first sight of the Kensington Gardens rookery—The true history of the expulsion of the rooks—A desolate scene, and a vision of London beautified.
We have seen how it is with the carrion crow—that he is in the balance, and that if the park authorities will but refrain from persecuting him he will probably be able to keep his ancient place among the wild birds of London. To what has already been said on the subject of this bird I will only add here that there is, just now, an unfortunate inclination in some of the County Council’s parks to adopt the policy of the royal parks—to set too high a value on domestic and ornamental water-fowl, which, however beautiful and costly they may be, can never give as much pleasure or produce the same effect on the mind as the wild bird. The old London crow is worth more to London than many exotic swans and ducks and geese.
LONDON CROWS