BOOK. 269 



still more novel site has also been chosen by a few 

 pairs at Spixwortli Park, where, for the last two or 

 three seasons, they have built in the tops of some fine 

 laurestinus bushes, about twelve or fourteen feet from 

 the ground, and others in a dwarf ilex, close to a 

 flight of stone steps, connecting one part of the garden 

 with the other, yet so low down that the feeding of the 

 young was plainly visible from the windows of the hall. 

 Whether or not any portion of our Norfolk rooks 

 leave us in autumn for more southern districts I am, 

 at present, unable to say positively. Mr. Gould alludes 

 (Birds of Great Britain) to the enormous flocks of these 

 birds which in winter frequent the large woods in 

 Cornwall ; Tregothnan, the seat of Viscount Palmouth, 

 being their most favourite resort. Here their numbers 

 during the winter months so far exceed any probable 

 quantity reared in that district, that he likens their 

 nightly swarms at roosting time to the masses of 

 starlings on our Norfolk broads. Lieutenant Sperling 

 also, in his "Ornithology of the Mediterranean," (Ibis, 

 vol. vi., p. 275), speaking of their abundance in Greece 

 during the winter, says, " all that I shot were young of 

 the year, which leads me to believe that it is only 

 the young rooks that move to the southward during 

 winter. Some of them cross the Mediterranean, as my 

 friend, Mr. C. A. Wright, records it as a bird of passage 

 through Malta." It would be exceedingly interesting, 

 therefore, to ascertain whether our own rooks per- 

 ceptibly decrease during severe winters, for I believe 

 there is no part of British ornithology which would so 

 well repay the persevering and careful study of the 

 naturalist as the partial migrations of our resident 

 species, properly so called, inasmuch as some individuals 

 are always stationary, though a large j)roportion of 

 them may frequently shift their ground under the 

 influence of inclement weather. 



