This list will prove useful to London naturalists in the near future, as many changes in the bird life of Kew may shortly be looked for. With the opening of the Queen’s grounds the partridge and pheasant will cease to breed there; the crow is not now allowed to build in the gardens; the nightingales have decreased to a very few birds during the last three or four seasons; and last summer (1897) the wood-wren failed to put in an appearance. To say that there will be other and greater changes is unhappily only too safe a prophecy to make. For several years past tree-felling has been vigorously prosecuted in the gardens to give them a more open park-like appearance; new gravelled roads have been laid down in all directions, and the policy generally has been that of the landscape-gardener which makes for prettiness, with the result that the aspect and character of this spot have been quite altered, and it is fast becoming as unsuitable a breeding place for the summer warblers and other shy woodland species as any royal west-end park.

Up till two months ago, it was some consolation to those who grieved at the changes in progress in Kew Gardens to think that the Queen’s private grounds adjoining were safe from the despoiler. This area is separated from the gardens by nothing but a wire fence; one could walk the entire breadth of the grounds with that untrimmed, exquisitely beautiful wooded wilderness always in sight; many acres of noble trees—oak, ash, elm, beech, hornbeam, and Spanish chestnut; a shady paradise, the old trunks draped with ivy, or grey and emerald green with moss; masses of bramble and brier, furze and holly, growing untouched beneath; the open green spaces a sea of blue in spring with the enchanting blue of the wild hyacinth. There was not anywhere on the borders of London—that weary circuit of fifty miles—so fresh and perfect a transcript of wild woodland nature as this, with the sole exception of Lord Mansfield’s private grounds at Hampstead.

Unhappily just before the announcement was made early in 1898 that the Queen had graciously decided to admit the public to this lovely ground, a gang of labourers was sent in to grub up the undergrowth, to lop off lower branches, and cut down many scores of the noblest old trees, with the object apparently of bringing the place more into harmony with the adjoining trim gardens. It is earnestly to be hoped that nothing further will be done to ruin the most perfect beauty-spot that remains to London.

Here our survey ends.

CHAPTER XIV

PROTECTION OF BIRDS IN THE PARKS

Object of this book—Summary of facts contained in previous chapters—An incidental result of changes in progress—Some degree of protection in all the open spaces, efficient protection in none—Mischievous visitors to the parks—Bird fanciers and stealers—The destructive rough—The barbarians are few—Two incidents at Clissold Park—Love of birds a common feeling of the people.

The most serious portion of my work still remains to do. In the introductory chapter I said that this was a book with a purpose, and, as the reader knows from much that has gone before, the purpose is to point out how the wild bird life we possess may be preserved, and how it may be improved by the addition of other suitable species which would greatly increase the attractiveness of the parks.