ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM A SOUTH LONDON SUBURB. 
used by the birds, and caused these wise creatures to abandon 
what had been so long their home. From thirty odd nests 
in the seventies, they became reduced to 5 in 1900, and this 
year (1909) not one remains. A few pairs migrated to Dulwich 
Road, but the major portion of the colony took up their quarters 
in some fine elms in Dulwich Meadows, with one solitary nest 
close to the gates of Dulwich Park. The bird is, | think, quite 
as plentiful as it was thirty years ago. In February or early 
March they begin to repair or build their nests, and by April 
the hen bird commences the task of incubation. At the end 
of that month the clamorous cries of the young whilst being 
fed will be heard, and shortly after the first perchers may be 
observed; by the middle or end of May the young leave the 
nest and forage with their parents in the fields and meadows 
around. 
Large immigrant flocks are to be seen in most years in 
October; they take the same route as other winter visitors, 
viz., W.N.W., and, like them, seem to require the wind to be 
blowing from that quarter. The birds come, of course, what- 
ever the weather or wind, but the fact remains that if E. wind 
prevails in October there is no wzszZe migration of Rooks 
or any other species. A regular habit of local Rooks in the 
winter months is the morning and afternoon flight from and 
to their roosting place. Here it is eastward in the morning 
as soon as it 1s light, and westward in the afternoon from 1.30 
to.4 pm. The route varies a little, but the habit never. The 
only abnormality I have noticed in this district was a white- 
winged specimen, on Mitcham Common in 1802. 
CROW. 
This is still a resident, two or three pairs breeding annually 
about Dulwich Wood and district, and the species is to be seen 
throughout the year; our public parks make for safety, for the 
birds are not molested. The Crow is most in evidence in 
spring, for then, at the time of courting, it is very noisy. It 
is also clamorous when first escorting its young family on forag- 
ing expeditions. 
DAW. 
Few, if any, breed now in the neighbourhood, although 
for several years a pair nested regularly in the steeple of a 
church on Brixton Hill, and thirty years ago one or more pairs 
used to breed in Brockwell Park, at that time a private pro- 
perty. In some few years I have observed the bird joining in 
the October migration, generally in parties of three or four, and 
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