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THE PIGEONS OF GUILDHALL.

THE audacity of London sparrows has often been noticed; how they seek their rations in the busiest thoroughfares, and find them under the horses' feet; how nicely they thread their way amongst waggons, omnibuses, and pedestrians, growing fat on Ludgate-hill, and securing a vested interest in the "Vale of Cheapside." Bold little marauders they certainly are; and if industry in one's vocation gives a fair title to success, no other two-legged creature has a better claim than the London sparrow.

There is, however, another winged colony in the centre of the metropolis which well deserves attention. The most incurious of observers must, when he crosses Guildhallyard, open his eyes wonderingly at the incessant gyrations of the pigeons. Where do they come from? Who can they belong to? What strange combination of circumstances can have induced them to seek a habitat here? Difficult problems, no doubt, yet probably explicable after this fashion. Some worthy citizen of bygone days, when London tradesfolks lived in London, must have been an inveterate pigeon-fancier, found his family increase on his hands, but could not muster courage to thin his birdhouse; and dying without making a provision for the pigeons in his will, left them to forage on the public. They had been hatched and bred in the neighbourhood of

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Guildhall; found the yard with its quadrangular sides vastly convenient; voted in full session, nemine contradicente, that there was no place like home," and resolved to seek protection under the august shadow of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council. The plan succeeded marvellously; the spot was a sort of quiet oasis in the centre of business turmoil. The officials of the place, surprised at first, soon grew pleased with their presence, and finding that they could live and grow fat without any assistance, in addition to the possible occurrence of occasional pigeon-pies or roasts, suffered them to remain wholly unmolested. We cannot pretend to say when this treaty of mutual benefits was first executed; but the feathered parties to it soon multiplied amazingly. Roofs, parapets, water-pipes, convenient blocks of chimneys, all found inhabitants not contemplated by the builder; and at early morning, before the Hall received its legal occupants, the broad pavement was often quite darkened by these graceful birds, and the flap of wings as they rose into the air on any sudden alarm was really quite startling. It is strange to find in some of the most crowded streets of the City, an old tree or two, in solitary greenness, reading a silent homily on the departed traders of years long past; but it was yet more strange to meet with myriads of pigeons forming part of the omnium gatherum of a mighty metropolis, and hopping about as fearlessly amidst bigwigs and merchants as they could have done in a country farm-yard. Perhaps I shall be reminded that in a famed locality, scarcely out of sight, there have flourished from time immemorial two families even more remarkable-the bulls and bears of the Stock Exchange. Another time, our love of natural history may lead us to discourse of them too, especially as we have heard it is not unusual to get pigeoned there.

The increase of our dove commonwealth was so great

that not long since it was thought that they must be thinned; a judgment was passed against them, and an incredible number of savoury pies was the result. Still many members of the martyred family remained; they scorned to migrate from their old quarters, and the flapping of wings is again heard in Guildhall-yard. Sorry should we be that it should ever entirely cease; even commercial princes may part their rights of property with such respectable pigeons, whose sagacity in choosing a residence cannot be too highly praised. About ten years since I had to watch during a summer night at a house in King-street, within sight of Guildhall, and one of my amusements was to look from an upper window, and scrutinise the long narrow strip of sky overhead, for indications of the approaching day. The street was deserted, the last members of the night cabstand were gone, the shuttered warehouse fronts looked as dead and silent as if they were never to be opened again; occasionally a policeman, an unwilling somnambulist, yawned along the pavement; even the lamps seemed half asleep; no doubt a star, a very small one, did twinkle now and then, but seven-eighths of the night, to speak in City phrase, had slipped by, and the grey dawn began to break. I had seen but very little of the pigeons up to that time, and was quite unprepared to find that the earliest welcome to the morning would be given by them. Gazing intently on the parapets of the opposite houses, for want of a more agreeable object, I fancied, as the light grew stronger, that there was a stir on the roofs, and that the chimney-pots were beginning to move. Presently a busy little head peeped over the wall, seeming to say, "Is it day, I wonder?" and then the happy creature began. dressing its bright plumage, and obviously preparing for flight. By this, my forward pigeon's companions were up and stirring, and the light glancing on their delicately tinted feathers made them shine as if their wings were cut

out of precious stones. Hopping, chirping, and crooning their matin hymn, the merry flock seemed to rejoice in renewed existence-making short circles in the air, the whirr of their wings giving out a monotonous kind of music; then rising high, and indulging in bolder flights, their beautiful plumes steeped in the gorgeous lustre of the first sunbeams, appeared to reflect back the brightness they received. Alighting for a moment on the walls, they indulged in a kind of jerking march, like a company of riflemen imperfectly drilled, then off anew to the blue heaven, not yet obscured by coal smoke, to revel in a quiet air bath. As the ancient mariner blessed the water snakes because of their exceeding loveliness, so I was fain to bless the pigeons, and to wish myself half as happy. As it became broad day, my pigeons began to quit Kingstreet, and, being curious, I watched their flight into the Guildhall-yard, where, joining a yet larger portion of this bird republic, their proceedings took a more orderly form, and each new flight was marked by some settled purpose. Who can doubt that they have a language peculiar to themselves? Who can hesitate to believe that every beast and bird knows how to make itself understood by its companions? There is praise in the song of the feathered choristers-praise in the lowing of cattle-praise in the bleating of sheep-praise in the lion's roar, when “he seeks his meat from God." Should we not recognise every living creature as a pensioner on the same bounty by which we too are fed? Should we not be kind and forbearing to all these lower heirs of life? "A merciful man is merciful to his beast." A Mahometan accounts it criminal to hurt, without an absolute necessity, even the lowest animal. In Turkish towns, hospitals are common for dumb creatures; and without establishing asylums for blind and lame dogs and horses, we should not be the worse for occasionally imitating the Mussulman's hu