Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/314

282 number of these feline marauders in London is estimated at not less than half a million, while ownerless Cats, which are thus thrown more on their own resources, are considered to reach in the same area the prodigious quantity of from eighty to a hundred thousand. These furies hunt the parks by night. "The noisy clang of the closing park gates is a sound well known to the Cats in the neighbourhood; no sooner is it heard than they begin to issue from areas and other places where they have been waiting, and in some spots as many as half a dozen to a dozen may be counted in as many minutes crossing the road and entering the park at one spot." No wonder that lovers of birds—either wild or in captivity—are "death on Cats."

This book contains no lists of birds, but is devoted to general facts, many of which are of an anecdotal character. Some good stories are told, and perhaps one of the most piquant is that of Mr. Cunninghame Graham writing to an eminent ornithologist for advice as to obtaining Books for his trees, and receiving a lengthy reply "pointing out the fallacies of Socialism as a political creed, but saying nothing about Rooks." Mr. Hudson writes in a delightfully unconventional manner, a by no means too frequent occurrence in these days; he is also not afraid of "calling names." Thus a local birdstuffer "who killed the last surviving Magpies at Hampstead" is not inappropriately styled a "miscreant," and the keeper who destroyed the last Ravens' nest in Hyde Park justly earns the title of "injurious wretch." The author is a true lover of birds, as his own words best testify.

"Without the 'wandering Hern,' or Buzzard, or other large soaring species, the sky does not impress me with its height and vastness; and without the sea-fowl the most tremendous seafronting cliff is a wall which may be any height; and the noblest cathedral without any Jackdaws soaring and gambolling about its towers is apt to seem little more than a great barn, or a Dissenting chapel on a gigantic scale."