LONDON ROOKERIES. 448 
like to trust my own memory on this point, though I think I have 
reason to remember the nests in these gardens at a prior date, but 
Yarrell’s evidence on the point is conclusive. In July, 1839, 
he spoke (Brit. Birds, ed. 1, vol. ii., p. 92) unmistakably of this 
Rookery being already long established.* 
The witness cited by Dr. Hamilton is doubtless right in saying 
that he remembered no Rooks or Rooks’ nests in the Temple 
Gardens for forty or fifty years. It is true that the ‘History of 
Epsom,’ published in 1825 anonymously, but believed (as I learn 
through Mr. Harting’s courtesy) to have been written by Mr. 
Pownall and the late Mr. Everest, speaks (p. 130) of it as then 
existing; but Rennie, only six years later (‘ Architecture of Birds,’ 
Pp. 220), wrote of it as being “long abandoned”; and this is a point 
on which Rennie could hardly have been mistaken. The strange 
story of the establishment of this Rookery by Sir William Northey 
will, I hope, in the course of time be confirmed by further 
evidence. I can hardly accept it at present, aud yet I should 
like to believe it. 
With regard to the Rook’s nest at the corner of Wood Street, 
Cheapside, I have to remark that had Dr. Hamilton referred to 
the later editions of Yarrell’s ‘British Birds,’ published in 1845 and 
1856 (vol. ii., p. 92 and p. 96), he would have seen that the state- 
ment originally published in 1889 was modified according to 
experience, and moreover that Mr. Harting’s authority for their 
being two nests in the tree in 1845 was Yarrell himself, who also 
first recorded the nest begun on the vane of St. Olave’s, Crutched 
Friars, in 1838 (‘ British Birds,’ ed. 1; Voli, p..92)- 
It may be here worth while copying a passage from the some- 
what scarce and now little read ‘ Ornithologia’ of James Jennings 
(ed. 2, p. 75):— 
“There is a Rookery in the Tower, and another was, till lately, in 
Carlton Palace Gardens ; but the trees having been cut down to make room 
for the improvements going on there, the Rooks have removed this spring 
(1827) to some trees behind the houses in New Street, Spring Gardens. 
a considerable number of Rooks have built for many years.” Now anyone who 
knew London at that time must be aware that these two gardens were those of 
Chesterfield House, whose Rookery has only ceased within the last few years to 
exist (could not Dr. Hamilton give the exact date of its extinction?), and of 
Wharnclitfe House, whose Rookery fortunately still remains. 
