Now since all these methods, which, like the little spasmodic attempts to kill the cats in some of the parks, are practised in secrecy and fear lest the public should hear of them, have so far proved ineffectual, would it not be best to take a lesson from Nature, and restore some of the natural checks which we have taken away? Let us in the first place make use of the park sparrows in establishing colonies of as many new or greatly diminished species as possible; and when we have done this, let us further introduce, in moderate numbers, such species as prey on small birds and their eggs and young—peregrine falcon, kestrel, sparrow-hawk, owl, crow, daw, magpie, and jay.
However successful we may be in adding to the number of our songsters, the sparrow will always be more numerous than all the other species together, and on account of his abundance he will be more preyed upon; furthermore, his big, conspicuous, slovenly nests will be more subject to attack than the nests of other species. It has been shown that millions of sparrows are yearly destroyed by cats in London; yet so quickly are they snapped up by their subtle enemy that we really see nothing or very little indeed of the process. The young birds flutter out of their nests and drop lightly down, only to vanish like snowflakes that fall on the water. Here we see that even in London, with but two species to act upon, Nature, left a little to herself, has succeeded in establishing something like that balance of forces and harmony which exists everywhere in her own dominion. Would it not be better to leave it to Nature in the parks, too, to do her own killing in her own swift and secret manner? In streets and houses cats are of the greatest service, doing for us, and unseen by us, that which we could not effectually do for ourselves: in the parks their presence is injurious; there we rather want Nature’s feathered executioners, who are among her most beautiful and interesting creatures.
How effective and salutary her methods are, how beautiful in their results, may be seen in such places as have been made sanctuaries for all wild animals, innocent and rapacious. Even on the borders of London we have such places, and perhaps it would be hard anywhere in the rural districts to find a more perfect sanctuary in a small space than that of Caen Wood, at Hampstead. Although at the side of the swarming Heath, it is really wild, since for long years it has been free from the landscape gardener with his pretty little conventions, and the gamekeeper and henwife with their persecutions and playing at Providence among the creatures. If it were possible for a man to climb to the top of one of its noble old trees—a tall cedar, beech, or elm, with a girth of sixteen to eighteen feet—he would look down and out upon London: leagues upon leagues of houses, stretching away to the southern horizon, with tall chimneys, towers, and spires innumerable appearing above the brooding cloud of smoke. But the wood itself seems not to have been touched by its sulphurous breath; within its green shade all is fresh as in any leafy retreat a hundred miles from town. And here the wild creatures find a refuge. Badgers—not one pair nor two, but a big colony—have their huge subterraneous peaceful village in the centre of the wood. The lodge-keeper’s wife told me that one evening, seeing her dog, as she imagined, trotting from her across the lawn, she called to him and, angered at his disregard of her voice, ran after him for some distance among the trees, and only when she was about to lay her hands on him discovered that she was chasing a big badger. The badgers have for neighbours stoats and weasels, carrion crows, jays, and owls. Even in the daytime you will find the wood-owl dozing in the deep twilight of a holly-bush growing in the shade of a huge oak or elm. High up on the trees at least half a dozen pairs of carrion crows have their nests; and occasionally all the birds gather at one spot and fill the entire wood with their tremendous excited cries. A dozen of these birds, when they let themselves go, will create a greater uproar than a hundred cawing rooks.
Here, too, the rabbit keeps his place in spite of so many enemies; and to those named must be added the domestic cat. I myself have seen puss returning to the house carrying a half-grown young rabbit to her kittens.
The moorhen and wood-pigeon also flourish, and in a still greater degree the missel-thrush, throstle, and blackbird. In this wood I have counted forty-three breeding species; and not only is the variety great, but many of our best songsters, residents and migrants, are so numerous that at certain times in spring, when birds are most vocal, you may hear at this spot as fine a concert of sweet voices as in any wood in England.
Sanctuaries like that of Caen Wood the Metropolitan parks can never be. Only in a few of the most favourably situated open spaces on the borders of London could we have anything approaching to the richness and harmony seen in this perfect transcript of wild nature. But it should be our aim to have all the parks, even to the most central, as nearly like sanctuaries as such small isolated urban spaces, inhabited by so limited a number of species, may be made.
DABCHICK’S FLOATING NEST: ST. JAMES’S PARK