here she had left green
fields, running brooks, and hedges white with may, on the northern side
of the Strand.

'Yes 'said Mab 'you hardly ever see a crow now, where, in my time, the
farmers were so much plagued by the furtive bird. But, as the crows
have been thoroughly frightened off, and as there are now no crops to
protect, I do think they might remove the permanent scarecrows.'

'Your Majesty's meaning,' said the Owl, 'is beginning to dawn on me.
True, in your time there were no statues in London, and the mistake
into which you have fallen is natural. You went away before the great
development of British Art, and British Sculpture, and British worship
of Beauty. The monuments you notice are expressive of our love of
loveliness, our devotion to all that is fair. These objects of which you
complain are not meant to alarm predatory fowls (though well calculated
for that purpose) but to commemorate heroes, often themselves more or
less predatory.'

'Do you mean to tell me?' asked Mab, 'that that big burly scarecrow,
about to mend a gigantic quill with a blunt sword, was a hero?'

'He was indeed,' said the Owl, 'though I admit that you would never have
guessed it from his effigy.'

'And that other scarecrow, all claws and beak, who blocks up the narrow
street where the Dragon worshippers throng? Was _he_ a hero?'

'He is believed by some to be the Dragon himself,' said the Owl; 'but no
one knows for certain, not even the sculptor.'

'And the Barber's Block with the stuffed dog, looking into the Park?'

'He was a poet,' said the Owl, 'and expressed so much contempt for men
that they retorted by that ridiculous caricature. Would you believe it,
English sculptors actually quarrelled among themselves as to who made
that singular and, for its original purpose, most successful scarecrow!'

'I don't wonder,' remarked the Queen, 'that birds of taste are rare in
the Metropolis, and that, on the Embankment especially, a rook would be
regarded as a kind of prodigy. Nowhere has the manufacture of permanent
scarecrows been conducted with more ingenious success. But tell me, my
accomplished fowl, have Britons any other arts? Long ago the men used to
paint themselves blue, but, as far as I have remarked, the women are
now alone in staining their cheeks with a curious purplish dye and their
locks with ginger colour.'

'Among the Arts,' said the Owl, 'the modern English chiefly excel in
painting. To-morrow, by the way, the sh