8 London Birds. 



among the sheep, and are as talkative and merry 

 as in the reed beds on the Norfolk broads. 



Two very interesting papers on " The Rooks and 

 Rookeries of London," the one by Dr. Hamilton, 

 the other by Professor Alfred Newton, are to be 

 found in the Zoologist. The tale told is a sad one, 

 and the conclusion drawn seems only too probable : 

 "The Rooks and Rookeries so pleasant to old 

 Londoners are gradually diminishing and disappear- 

 ing, and the London Rook to our grandchildren will 

 be a bird of the past." 



The story of the Kensington rookery is a sample 

 of what is going on all through London. " In 1836," 

 writes Dr. Hamilton, "this rookery extended from 

 the Broad Walk near the Palace to the Serpentine, 

 where it commences in the gardens, and there must 

 have been nearly one hundred nests." " They are 

 now," he adds, writing in June, 1878, " alas ! reduced 

 to thirty-one nests and confined to a few of the 

 upper trees skirting the Broad Walk near the North 

 Gate." 



Since then almost every tree in the garden which 

 had a nest in it has been cut down, and until the 

 spring of 1892, when there were encouraging signs 

 of a return, and one pair built again in a tree in 

 the south-west corner, there seemed too much reason 

 to fear that Kensington Gardens had lost for ever 

 one of its greatest interests, and that the colony at 

 Gray's Inn was destined to be the only considerable 

 survival of the great rookeries once common in the 

 middle of London. 



A Hawfinch, one of the comparatively rare birds 

 which have apparently of late years become more 

 common, was picked up in St. James's Park on the 

 28th January, 1890. It was a hen in good condition 



