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These
visitants may be classed either as regular accidental; a full half come here
more by mistake than anything else. The wind blew them here, or in the sea mists
they lost their way, and so strayed here. It stands to reason it must be; how
else can you explain the incident I have just given of the poor woodcock? for if
he had been able in any way to help it, he would not have fallen down in such a
place. And in this division must also be put the storm-petrel that flew blindly
against a man's face and then dropped dead at his feet in the Edgware
Road, Paddington, and that
poor snipe which was found fluttering about in the gutter by the roadside in the
busy Strand. These all were purely accidental visitors, and with them I do not
propose to deal; what I do want to dwell upon is that other half of the list of
birds who come to London quite regularly. Swallows and martins, thrushes and
blackbirds, wagtails, warblers, finches, and wood-pigeons, all arrive quite
regularly every spring in countless hundreds, and for the most part pass on to
the outermost suburbs and far distant country. A few stay, and it is with this
few, and how to make this few into an army, that I am mainly concerned. In St.
John's Wood there has always been a fair sprinkling of summer visitors;
blackcaps have been heard warbling as sweetly as if a hundred miles away from
Bow Bells; the delicate slim willow warbler goes creeping in and out the
vegetation, whilst the whit-throat and flycatcher can be seen springing into
midair, chasing their little winged prey all the day long. Kensington Gardens is
noted for the number of various birds
it has; and, more or less, there is a narrow fringe all
round London of fixed bird life.
 I
want to see that narrow fringe grow and grow till the whole great City, with St.
Paul's as its centre, is leavened with bird life. We can all help onto this end.
Any house that distinctly sets itself to work to let the birds know that they
are welcome can in a few months do so, and it is extraordinary how, when once
birds have been accustomed and enticed to a place ~~ say by hanging up a fat bit
of pork for the tomtits, and by placing out crumbs and a saucer of water for the
sparrows and finches ~~ they cling to that place, may always be looked for
there; and moreover, they attract other sorts of birds as well. If each house
were to do what it might in this matter, soon we should have gulls and other sea
birds all the year round fishing in the river or soaring over the city. The
fast-diminishing rookeries would be re-stocked, our parks and gardens would be
full of sweet songsters, whilst from church steeple and public building would
come the merry twitter of the swallows and the house-martins as in
and out they dart.
"GREAT
YARMOUTH."
ORIGINAL
ETCHING BY PERCY ROBERTSON, A.R.P.-E.
AMONG
the members of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers there are few whose work
appeals to the wide public. One of these is the author of the etching which
appears opposite p. 248. Mr. Robertson has devoted his special attention to
landscape-etching in a popular form, and many are which have come from his hand.
"Great Yarmouth" is a characteristic example of his work although not
so fully elaborated as usual. The view of the town is that which is seen from
the railway on the approach from Norwich, the tower of the Town Hall showing
high above the other buildings. Mr. Robertson studied under his father, the late
M. W. Ridley, and for a short time under Professor the daintily-executed plat of
picturesque spots Fred Brown at Westminster. He was elected an Associate of the
Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1887.
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