NATURE NOTES. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Disappearance of Rooks’ Nests (p. 19). — I may mention a circum- 
•stance within my own knowledge which may throw a little light on this subject. 
About thirteen years ago, when we were living in an old house in Middlesex, 
which was surrounded by magnificent elm trees of great age, a series of violent 
autumn storms threw down several, whose full verdure had masked from human 
eyes all signs of decreasing vitality. They fell, as elms generally do, without 
warning, their shallowly imbedded roots tearing up a smaller surface of ground 
than one would have supposed likely. I do not think that a rook’s nest was 
found in one of these victims to the wind, although their neighbours were 
thickly peopled. The rooks had doubtless detected a suspicious brittleness 
about the upper twigs in the previous building season, and had decided against 
trusting them for their homes. I had for several years remarked that one or two 
of the trees which fell that autumn had been avoided by the rooks, and had 
watched without success to ascertain the reason. My ultimate conclusion was 
that rooks are not only admirable architects, but trustworthy surveyors. 
Elinor F. Rummens. 
Eastbourne. 
[The Rev. Prebendary Gordon writes in the Selborne column of the West 
Sussex Gazette: “ A writer in Nature Notes asks how to win rooks back to a 
deserted rookery. Dr. Buckland was once asked the same question by Sir 
Emerson Tennent. Frank Buckland has labelled the letter, showing the 
favourable result of following the Professor’s advice, with the triumphal words 
‘ Rookery restored.’ Sir Emerson Tennent wrote to Dr. Buckland with re- 
ference to his house in County Fermanagh, Ireland: ‘You will see that the 
crows (thanks to you) have begun to return to my demesne. The plan the 
steward took was to attach the old nests to the trees where he wished the new 
crows to build. They have taken the old nests to pieces (lawyer-like), and are 
building very near the spot.’ Perhaps even a more excellent way was that 
adopted by Sir Percy Burrell, when he wished to establish a rooker)’ at West 
Grinstead Park. Mr. Borrer {E/rds of Sussex, p. 151) states that Sir Percy 
procured some boughs of trees with nests containing young, from about half a 
mile off, and fixed them in a clump of old oak in the aforesaid park. The 
parents came there, and the young were brought up, and a considerable rookery 
IS now established. My friend Canon Borrer, rector of Hurstpierpoint, told me 
of young birds being brought in their nest from a village in Hampshire to 
Lincoln Inn Fields, and the old ones fed them all the way, and settled with them 
in the metropolis.”] 
A Robin Query. — Can any of your correspondents account for the some- 
what curious fact, that robins never seem to increase in numbers, though there 
are always at least four, often five, and sometimes as many as six eggs in the 
nest, and not seldom two broods in the year, and, thanks to the pathetic story of 
the Babes in the Wood, they are protected, and favourites everywhere. Even the 
mischievous school-boy, who spares nothing else, will hesitate to kill a robin or 
rob the nest, yet they never seem to increase in numbers. Can there be an)’ 
truth in the belief, so common in rural districts, that they fight and kill one 
another to such an extent that their numbers never increase? It is certain that 
two cock-birds, if put into the same cage, will fight till one is killed. 
J. A. Kerr. 
The Rectory, Clyst St. J/ttry, Devon. 
Welsh Plant Names. — Plant names in Welsh, as in many other language, 
maybe roughly classified under three heads, viz.: — (l) Native, or peculiar names 
(2) translated names, and (3) corruptions of botanical and foreign names. A long 
and indiscriminate list of Welsh plant names would hardly interest the readers of 
Nature Notes, but a selection of some of the most peculiar and expressive may 
not be uninteresting. 
A common name in the Principality for the Purple Foxglove is Menyg yr 
Ellyll (Fairy’s or Folk’s gloves); it is also known in some parts cxs, Menyg Mair 
•(Mary’s gloves), and also as Bysedd Cunt (Dog’s toes). Cribau St. Efraid (St. 
