12 LONDON BIRDS 



gardens. In the following year there were eleven nests, 

 and any fine evening in March as the sun set behind 

 the palace as many couples might be seen indulging 

 in their usual games in the air before settling in for 

 the night. 



The tribal laws which regulate the family affairs of 

 Rooks are stringent and rigidly enforced ; and, though 

 an inexperienced pair may every now and then be 

 foolish enough to fancy themselves free to build out- 

 side the bounds prescribed, it is commonly only to 

 learn to their cost that, with birds, laws are made to 

 be obeyed. The numbers of the new colony, the 

 abandonment of the last year's nest in the corner, and 

 the bold occupation of the old site, seemed proofs 

 presumptive that the return of the exiles had been 

 with the sanction of constituted authority. But this 

 apparently was not the case, and the revived colony 

 was again the next year deserted. 



There seems too much reason to fear that Kensington 

 Gardens has lost for ever one of its greatest interests, 

 and that the colony at Gray's Inn is destined to be the 

 only considerable survival of the great rookeries once 

 common in the middle of London. 



In 1899 a Jackdaw and a Magpie, who had for some 

 weeks been keeping company, took possession of and 

 repaired an old nest on the top of a tall thorn- tree 

 in St. James's Park. When visited one morning in 

 March the Magpie was sitting within a foot or two 

 of the nest, which was of the ordinary Magpie build, 

 protected from above by a substantial umbrella of 



