228 
NATURE NOTES. 
FURTHER NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS. 
~HE following notes are supplementar}^ to my paper on 
“ Some London Birds,” which appeared last year in 
this magazine, and embody observations made during 
the year ending on the 31st July last. 
Referring to my remarks on the bullfinches in the Flower 
Walk in Kensington Gardens (Nature Notes, i8gi, p. 174), it 
should be mentioned that in the April number of the Zoologist of 
this year there is a note by Mr. W. H. Tuck, in which he states 
that the original pair of bullfinches were brought in the summer 
of 1890 from Siberia. This being so, the birds would no doubt 
belong to the northern race of bullfinch, a larger and brighter 
bird than ours, known as Pyrrhula major. Early in February 
one of the keepers told me he had recently observed the birds, 
but I have not seen them now for some months, and do not 
know whether they nested in the Gardens this spring. 
Early in January the thrushes were beginning to sing, and by 
the iSth the hedge sparrow was in full song. On the 31st a pair 
of tree creepers paid us a visit — the first I had seen in Kensing- 
ton Gardens for some years. 
Blackheaded gulls {Lavus ridihundus) were unusually numerous 
on the Thames between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges 
throughout the earlier portion of the year. They began to 
assume the black heads of their spring dress during the bitterly 
cold weather in Februarju The first day on which I saw one 
with an entire black head was the i6th February, but by the 
20th a large proportion of them had acquired it. During this 
cold weather larks were frequently to be seen making their way 
up the Thames, usually flying only a few inches above the sur- 
face of the water. 
The rooks which built in Connaught Square last year 
returned to breed this spring; there were four or five nests. In 
years gone by there used to be a rookery there, but I am told 
that, prior to the spring of 1891, it remained uninhabited for 
about twenty years. 
The crow’s nest in the avenue of trees which leads from the 
Round Pond to the Serpentine was again occupied, and the old 
bird was sitting hard in April ; but it is doubtful whether any 
young were reared this season — at any rate I saw nothing of 
them. 
There seems to be no end to the increase in London wood- 
pigeons. They were comparatively rare only a few years ago, 
yet no less than eighty-three were feeding in St. James’ Park at 
the same time on the 20th July. Sometimes, like the Orleton 
swifts, I “ don’t go home till morning,” and on one of these 
rare occasions (2nd June) I noticed quite a large flock of wood- 
pigeons feeding at 3 a.m. in the middle of the Ba)'swater Road. 
I have also seen them perching on the chimney pots of Hyde 
Park Gardens. 
