28 LONDON BIRDS 



and Hyde Parks, and in Kensington Gardens, would 

 probably have been under-estimated at 200. 



During the last few years they have been scarcely 

 so plentiful as in 1892 and in 1893, owing possibly to 

 the rather too assiduous attention during the nesting 

 season of a couple of Magpies, turned out not long 

 ago. 



When acorns ripen in the country the greater part 

 of the Wood Pigeons disappear from the parks, and, 

 if the winter is open, are seldom to be seen again in 

 anything like their summer numbers until the spring. 

 But a sharp frost, more especially if accompanied by 

 a heavy fall of snow, commonly brings them back to 

 London quarters, where food is plentiful and guns are 

 forbidden. 



In the autumn of 1900, the Wood Pigeons in St. 

 James's Park were fewer by far than they had been in 

 the same months for many years past. The compara- 

 tively few birds that did come in were later in coming 

 than usual, and their numbers, though appreciably 

 increased, were in the following spring still below the 

 average. 



An even more marked reduction was noticed in 

 other places to which it is the habit of Pigeons to 

 gather, often in vast numbers, for food. In parts, at 

 least, of the beech and oak districts of Gloucester- 

 shire, though conditions were apparently exceptionally 

 inviting, the immigrant autumn flocks were said to 

 be ' barely one-tenth ' of the usual numbers. Reports 

 from Oxfordshire were scarcely less remarkable. 



