HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



129 



LEAVES FROM MY NOTE-BOOK FOR 1S84. 

 By A. Kingston. 



IN transcribing the following extracts from " Leaves 

 from my Note-book for 18S4," it is scarcely 

 necessary, perhaps, for me to caution the reader 

 against expecting anything very profound, or anything 

 directed to a special branch of enquiry ; still less will 

 he expect them to contain much in the way of novelty. 

 They are the casual observations made, and jotted 

 down as they were made, in leisure moments ; and 

 their only merit perhaps will be that they may 

 possibly suggest, here and there, a line of inquiry to 

 others having more ability and leisure to follow it to 

 a profitable issue. 



Fig. 89. — Royston Crow. 



The opening days of 1884 were well calculated to 

 stimulate observation in many directions. The close 

 of 1883 had left such a legacy of early promise as is 

 rarely witnessed on New Year's Day. In the vegetable 

 kingdom, flowers enjoyed almost a second summer. 

 Many of the yellow-flowered species of the Composite 

 among wild flowers, and many annuals in the garden 

 had flourished far beyond their appointed time. 

 Gardens were gay with wallflowers, marigolds, 

 daisies, and pansies, and other favourites. The 

 skylark and thrush had vigorously warbled in the 

 new year, and the industrious little honey bee 

 {Apis mellifica) was busy making adventures on its 

 own account at an abnormally early date. Some 

 evidence, too, was forthcoming on the subject of the 

 hardihood of one or two of our hibernating lepidoptera. 



The hardiest of all proved to be the common small 

 tortoise-shell butterfly ( Vanessa icrticce), several speci- 

 mens of which came under the observation of the 

 writer during the first ten days of January, stimulated 

 by the atmosphere of a warm room, into a vigorous 

 flight. I may add that next to the tortoise-shell in 

 hardiness among the hibernators, comes, apparently, 

 the fine old peacock butterfly (Vanessa lo). 



The Royston, or hooded crow (Corvns comix), as 

 it is seen in its migrations southward, has so distinctly 

 the opposite of the gregarious habit of the rook, that 

 I was somewhat surprised to notice, during January, 

 a little community of half-a-dozen of them together, 

 and showing an unusually sociable disposition. This 

 somewhat remarkable member of a familiar ornitho- 

 logical family having enjoyed its local designation for 

 centuries, has, I suppose, a fair claim to the name by 

 which ornithologists and naturalists have for so long 

 recognised it.* It could of course only have derived 

 this-local name from the fact of its attachment to the 

 heathy country about Royston, and of its not going 

 much further south in its winter migration. This, 

 however, is not absolutely conclusive evidence of its 

 claim to the title,- for in the writer's birds'-nesting 

 days, it was commonly known as the "Dunstable 

 crow," in the neighbourhood of the chalk ridges of 

 the Chiltern Hills, where its peculiar plumage was 

 occasionally recognised. Whether this interesting 

 corvus is likely to preserve its local claims and specific 

 distinction, as it has done in the past, may perhaps 

 be doubtful ; for Mr, Henry Seebohm, a great 

 authority on ornithological questions, and well versed 

 in the habits of migratory birds, makes out a strong 

 case against the Royston crow for its disposition to 

 interbreed with the carrion crow and other members 

 of the family. The opinion of so accurate an observer 

 is of course entitled to the highest respect, and yet it 

 is not a little singular that the present representatives 

 of the hooded crow, as they are caught in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Royston Heath, are as distinctly specific 

 as any of their predecessors, with the same distinct 

 light grey markings as of old, and no perceptible 

 traces of hybridisation. Indeed, I am informed by 

 Mr. Norman, a naturalist, whose business of taxidermy, 

 and that of his father before him, has for a period of 

 sixty years enjoyed a more than local repute, that 

 although many specimens of the local and general 

 rarce aves have passed through their hands, yet during 

 the whole of that period only one specimen of the 

 hooded crow has ever come under their notice showing 

 traces of hybridisation. With this there was the 

 uncertain element of its being a young bird ; but on 

 being submitted to Mr. Gold, of London, it was 

 pronounced by him to be a hybrid, and the result of 

 interbreeding between the Royston and carrion crows. 

 This specimen is now in the collection of Lord Bray- 



* Since writing the above, I find that this local name is given 

 to the bird in the Rev. Samuel Ward's " Natural History," 

 1775 ; the earliest mention I know of. 



