198 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
stantially what he had himself seen, and in conclusion giving it as the 
settled conviction of his mind that Rooks were subject to the ‘falling 
sickness.’ ” 
Few people, save lawyers-and their clients, ever visit one of 
the quietest precincts in the city of London, viz., Gray’s Inn. 
Turning out of noisy Holborn or Gray’s Inn Lane, the most 
perfect stillness suddenly prevails; another city seems to have 
arisen; quiet alleys and paved courts shut out the noise of the 
busy world; a solitary footstep—made still more solitary by its 
echo—breaks upon the ear. Can this be in the midst of London? 
Even so, and in that great Square the chief noise is the “caw” 
of the Rooks. 
In the gardens of Gray’s Inn may still be seen the largest 
Rookery in London. How long it has been established I have 
not been able to ascertain. The elm trees were planted by Lord 
Bacon. It was probably coeval with that of the Temple, and 
probably increased when the Temple Rookery was abandoned. 
Six years ago there were thirty-eight nests. Two years later some 
of the trees were blown down, others were cut down, and the 
Rookery was nearly annihilated; a few nests only remained on 
some plane trees. The Gardens having been kept very quiet, and 
all noisy children excluded, the Rooks are gradually returning, 
and this year, on April 28th, there were twenty-eight full nests 
with birds sitting, and four unfinished. On going round the garden 
I was informed that every morning one of the residents feeds the 
Rooks, and that often as many as eighty birds have been counted. 
Now as twenty-eight nests will only give fifty-six birds, the rest 
must come from a distance—probably the birds of a former year. 
Let us hope, from the care taken, that this Rookery will long flourish 
and increase. The gardens are beautifully clean, and the birds as 
glossy as if they made their nests one hundred miles from this 
smoky city.* 
For some years a pair of Rooks built their nest in the plane tree 
at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside. I have notes of this in 
1835, 1836, 1837, and 1838. Yarrell says that they did not use 
the nest after 1836, but this is a mistake. Probably these birds 
were the same who built their nest previously on the Dragon of 
* Some notes on the Rookery of Gray’s Inn appeared in ‘ The Field’ of the 17th 
and 24th April, 1875, and 26th February, 1876,.—Eb. 
