334 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



shepherd as by the gamekeeper or the poultry-farmer. Both 

 the bird and its nest are conspicuous, and it is not difficult 

 to banish the species from any well-watched region. But in 

 London and its suburbs the carrion crow has few enemies ; 

 and his boding caw and lean sinewy form are familiar from 

 the centre of London to its furthest outskirts. True to its 

 name, the carrion crow chiefly feeds in London on the garbage 

 of ash-heaps and rubbish-tips in suburban wastes, and on the 



dead animal matter which 

 it finds on the shores of 

 the river and the large 

 suburban reservoirs. It 

 will also steal eggs or kill 

 A young birds when it can. 

 ks^ The prevalence of the 

 carrion crow in London is 

 one reason of the diminu- 

 **-* ^BSgjjJ/ ti on f it s more peaceable 



cousin, the rook, just as 

 carrion crow the diminution of crows 



has led to the multiplica- 

 tion of rookeries. Though the rook sometimes develops 

 the carrion crow's marauding tricks, it is no match for 

 the crow in a family tussle ; and crows are dangerous 

 pests in the neighbourhood of any rookery. Rooks are now 

 very scarce in central London ; besides the small rookery 

 in Connaught Square, on the north side of Hyde Park, 

 which is only irregularly occupied, their only surviving 

 colony is the famous rookery in Gray's Inn. A few years 

 ago this was nearly wiped out by the raids of carrion crows, 

 and the rooks were only saved by the forcible expulsion of 

 the robbers. But crows incur little hostility elsewhere in 

 London ; they occasionally breed even in Kensington Gar- 



