Of late a good deal of attention has been directed to prints of the parks by reason of Mr. Charles Edward Jerningham, the clever “Marmaduke” of _Truth_, having presented a collection of old prints, as well as of park keys, passes, and the like, to the nation—an interesting gift which, very appropriately, has now been permanently placed on view in a room specially set apart at Kensington Palace. As may be observed from those prints, the parks formerly had a much more rural air than is now the case, when they have become little more than regulated pleasure grounds for the people. In the summer of 1739 an otter hunt took place in St. James’s Park. A large dog otter, having taken up his abode there, played great havoc with the fish in the ponds and canal, and eventually, as he would take no notice of the traps set for his destruction, a regular otter hunt was organised by the ranger, then Lord Essex. At nine o’clock in the morning of a summer day, Sir Robert Walpole’s pack of otter hounds, which had been borrowed for the occasion, appeared upon the scene, and after a hunt which lasted two hours the otter, having left the water and tried to run to the great canal, was speared by a Mr. Smith who hunted the hounds. At one time, of course, deer were regularly hunted in Hyde Park, and in the seventeenth century several serious affrays took place between poachers and the park gamekeepers, one at least of which led to executions at Hyde Park Gate. When I was a child there were still deer in Hyde Park, for they were only finally removed in 1831. One of the chief reasons for their removal was, it is said, that a great number of complaints were made concerning the keeper, who was in the habit of shooting pet dogs which then, as now, were taken to the park for exercise. At the present time a vixen fox is said to have taken up her abode in Richmond Park. Indeed, once again wild life is making its way into the town, and of late years the advantages of the London parks as a haven of refuge have gradually become recognised by many different kinds of birds, which find in them a secure retreat. A kingfisher has, I believe, been seen in St. James’s Park, whilst at the moment of writing these lines a pair of magpies are busily engaged in building a nest in one of the trees of the Green Park, quite close to the railings which skirt Piccadilly. A curious fact in natural history is that pigeons which are wild in the country are quite tame in London, apparently recognising that once within the metropolis they have nothing to fear. So tame, indeed, are they that their practice of building nests in all sorts of places has of late begun to cause considerable inconvenience.