The Savannah morning news., 1902-06-26

thirty yards OF a footpath or railway.
and during the frost in February they
came TO be fed by the river bank. with
in ten yards of the high road. jack
DAVIS, being mischieVous birds, are wild
and wary enough In preserved parks
and on estates where they are shot. In
Oxford an old resident I'm holywen
street used to provide breakfast for the
Jackdaws regularly, cutting up
trencher of slices of bread into cubes
and throwing ii out on TO the grass be-
low his window. The jackdaws came 20
be fed as tamely as ducks. though they
were by no means on these terms with
the undergraduates of New College
over the way.
Probably the two most striking ex-
amples of this distinguishing power
possessed by birds which are wonder
fully quick judges of intentions, are
the great lake sanctuary of Holkham.
where thousands of fowl, which, when
they dispense later. are as wild as the
widest sit on the lake or its banks
as tamely as ducks in a farmyard and
the stable pond at Monymusk, where
the wild ducks used to come regularly
at twilight to be fed. But there are
instances of the tameness of mammals
even more striking. Certain bears in
the Yellowstone Park come to the no.
tel rubbish heaps to be fed with kitch-
en- waste, and allow ladies to photo
graph them; and the squirrels of the
New York Central Park are as famil
lar as are our London sparrows. These
creatures belong to the new era of what
Mrs. Brightwen has aptly called wild
nature won by kindness" or by alb
sence of unkindness. 1t offers a pc
culiarly pleasing prospect for our flu
ture town life and urban or half-urban
parks, and may be absolutely counted
upon If the creatures are not shot or
molested. Some correspondents of the
Spectator have pointed this out recent
~ as happening in the case of the
Phoenix Park in Dublin, where the
deer feed undisturbed between lines of
soldiers firing blank cartridges and the
crowd gazing at them, and can hardly
be driven off by the mounted men sent
to make them move on" 1t is noticed
that this tameness actually increases
as the number of persons frequenting
park increases--always providing
that cover and food, both Of which are
scanty in the central London parks, but
which abound at Richmond, are left
to them.
The wood-pigeons in Hyde Park and
Kensington Gardens are far tanner
than those at Richmond where they
do not habitually live in a crowd. In
the same way. the Richmond deer
are not 80 tame as lnOSe OIL BuSney or
of small parks like that at Magdalen
College. There is not the slightest
reason to fear that the admission of
volunteers to maneuver in Richmond
Park would scare away the wild crea-
lures. The sight of still more people
who do not hurt them seems only
to tend to increase their confidence.
Hence we have happily not to make
any disagreeable choice between train
ing our volunteers and destroying the
wild life in Richmond Park, and de-
priving our volunteers of their much
needed field days and keeping up the
wild life in Richmond Park. We can
perfectly well do our duty by our vol
unteers and yet allow Richmond Park
to remain the home of the deer and
the wild birds. The wild birds and
the deer will not take three months
to find out that the volunteers mean
no sort of harm.