A word must be added concerning the rook-shooting, which takes place in May, when there are still a good many young herons in the nests. At Wanstead I have been seriously told that the herons are mightily pleased to witness the annual massacre of their unneighbourly black neighbours, or their young. My own belief, after seeing the process, is that the panic of terror into which the old herons are thrown may result some day in the entire colony shifting its quarters into some quieter wood in Essex; and that it would be well to adopt some other less dangerous method of thinning the rooks, if they are too numerous, which is doubtful.
WANSTEAD OLD PARK: EARLY SPRING
For the rest, the Corporation are deserving of nothing but praise for their management of this invaluable ground. Here is a bit of wild woodland nature unspoiled by the improving spirit which makes for prettiness in the Royal Parks and Kew Gardens and in too many of the County Council’s open spaces. The trees are not deprived of their lower branches, nor otherwise mutilated, or cut down because they are aged or decaying or draped in ivy; nor are the wind-chased yellow and russet leaves that give a characteristic beauty and charm to the winter woodland here swept up and removed like offensive objects; nor are the native shrubs and evergreens rooted up to be replaced by that always ugly inharmonious exotic, the rhododendron.
CHAPTER XII
SOUTH-EAST LONDON
General survey of South London—South-east London: its most populous portion—Three small open spaces—Camberwell New Park—Southwark Park—Kennington Park—Fine shrubberies—Greenwich Park and Blackheath—A stately and depressing park—Mutilated trees—The extreme East—Bostell Woods and Heath—Their peculiar charm—Woolwich and Plumstead Commons—Hilly Fields—Peckham Rye and Park—A remonstrance—Nunhead and Camberwell Cemeteries—Dulwich Park—Brockwell Park—The rookery.