• To find this Easterly bird haunt you proceed by
'bus or tram to a popular and populous part of the city. You reach one corner of the open space while still well within the city, though the remoter portion possesses a certain air of wildness ; and two naturalists who had heard of a rare arrival there, searched thoroughly and in vain through this unintentional sanctuary. They had virtually given up the search, and were retiring, when some white patch on a pond by the side of the road caught their eye. It proved to be nothing stranger than tame duck ; but at its Side, marvel of marvels, swam one of the rarer species of wild swan, the Bewick, as tamely almost as if it were the common mute swan, which was also present. This swan was the bird the natUralists had gone forth to seek ; and they had enjoyed some unearned increment, for they came upon a number of siskins feeding on the ground and watched them from a few yards distance.