LETTERS 



THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG ROOKS. 

 To the Editors of British Birds. 



Sirs, — Regarding the British Birds Marking Scheme, I would suggest 

 that during the coming nesting-season, a httle more attention be given 

 to Rooks, whose movements require some clearing up. In the Blantyre 

 district of Clyde — which is a thorough " Rook coimtry," and which 

 contains within a three mile radivis, some half a score of rookeries and 

 upwards of eight hundred nests — practically all young Rooks have 

 migrated by the end of October. During the winter and early spring 

 months, you may walk this countryside day after day and have hundreds 

 of Rooks under observation, yet you will rarely see an immature, i.e., 

 feathered -faced bird, amongst them. If all ornithologists who live in 

 " Rook country " would examine their Rook population, some very 

 interesting facts might be gleaned, for with a pair of serviceable 

 binoculars, even at a range of two hundred yards, the immature birds 

 will — for some time yet — be easily distinguishable from the adults. 



Very little shooting of young Rooks takes place in this locality. 

 Nearly all nests are built high up amongst the branches of very tall 

 beeches, very few in fact being accessible to the climber. 



WALTER Stewart, 



WILLOW-TIT OR MARSH-TIT IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 



To the Editors of British Birds. 



Sirs, — I have read wdth more than usual interest the notes on " The 

 British Willow-Tit in the West of Scotland " (supra, page 284). 



As the author of the latest work dealing with Scottish Ornithology 

 (i.e.. The Birds of Dumfriesshire, 1910), I feel it behoves me, in view of 

 my inclusion therein (pp. 40-42) of the Marsh-Tit (Parus palustris 

 dresseri), to write to you a few words in explanation. 



I must now confess that I cannot say with certainty whether it is 

 the Marsh- or Willow-Tit which occurs in this county. I have never 

 closely examined a locally-obtained specimen, and although I saw one 

 this autumn up Scaur Water, as I have done on former occasions, I 

 failed to procvu-e it. When I wrote my book, I thought (though I have 

 since learned that I had no right so to think) that the Willow-Tit was 

 confined to the south of the British Isles, and the specimen which in 

 my book (p. 41) I refer to as shot " in Capenoch Garden on August 1st, 

 1908," was so badly mauled by shot that it was only carelessly looked 

 at and then thrown away. 



