70 BIRDS IN LONDON 



will thrive and increase, and, in any case, that 

 if we want the daw we can have him. But the 

 case of the rook appears to me well nigh hope- 

 less, and on this account, in this list of the 

 corvines, he is put last that should have been 

 first. There are nevertheless two reasons why a 

 considerable space a whole chapter should be 

 given to this species : one is, that down to 

 within a few years ago the rook attracted the 

 largest share of attention, and was the most 

 important species in the wild bird life of the 

 metropolis ; the other, that it would be well that 

 the cause of its departure should not be forgotten. 

 It is true that in the very heart of the metropolis 

 a rookery still exists in Gray's Inn Gardens, and 

 that although it does not increase neither does 

 it diminish. Thus, during the last twenty years 

 there have never been fewer than seventeen or 

 eighteen, and never more than thirty nests in a 

 season ; and for the last three seasons the num- 

 bers have been twenty-five, twenty-three, and 

 twenty-four nests. Going a little farther back 

 in the history of this ancient famous colony, it 

 is well to relate that, twenty-three years ago, it 

 was well-nigh lost for ever through an uncon- 

 sidered act of the Benchers, or of some ignorant 



