414 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



able to record the Sand Grouse not as a mere stray or casual 

 visitant but as a resident, thus adding another rare and beautiful 

 bird to the avifauna of our district. 



A Raid on Rooks. 



If we except the Sparrow, there are probably no birds so 

 familiar to the English people as the "Social Rooks," and I 

 notice with regret that a movement for a reduction in their 

 numbers has been inaugurated in this part of the country. 

 "A reduction in their numbers," " a judicious thinning,'''' and 

 "a mitigation of the depredations of this omnivorous bird," are 

 some of the terms used by the assailants of the Rook ; but I 

 hope, gentlemen, that this language may not mean " extermina- 

 tion,''' and that the present agitation may not lead to the same 

 unreasoning slaughter and destruction that has characterized 

 former crusades of the kind. 



I am not old enough to remember the Rookery in the Vicarage 

 garden, in "Westgate Street, referred to by my late friend Mr. 

 James Clephan, in a paper which he wrote for the " Chronicle" 

 in 1864, but I have a lively recollection of the " Colony" that 

 first lived at the Crow Trees, and afterwards on the opposite 

 side of the street, in St. Thomas' Churchyard. Mr. Hancock 

 has told how the unfortunate Rooks were not allowed to rest in 

 peace, "though so near to the Church, and within its fence." 

 No street Arab could pass the clustering nests without having 

 a shy at them with a stone. The birds being ruthlessly perse- 

 cuted, and their nests destroyed, entirely disappeared from this 

 locality in 1867. 



While we in and near Newcastle would welcome the company 

 of the birds, if only to watch their habits, an Association for 

 their destruction has been formed in Northumberland. This 

 s offering twopence each for Rooks' heads and twopence a 

 dozen Ebr Sparrows' eggs, but I hope that those who are now 

 . in this warfare may not soon have cause to regret it, 

 auu mat they may not be as anxious to reinstate the Rook as 

 were their fellow-agriculturists on the other side of the Border. 



I do not doubt that since the almost total disappearance of 



