NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS IN 1898 55 
all descriptions are ri<;idly preserved in the forest, coupled with 
a guarantee that this protection shall be carefully exercised in 
the future. 
Thomas Whitburn. 
{President of the Natural History and 
Microscopical Society, Guildford.) 
NOTES ON LONDON BIRDS IN 1898 . 
ferfysV notes on London Birds for last year contain nothing 
gi so interesting as the appearance of the nightingale in 
Lincoln’s Inn to which 1 referred in 1897. For once 
in a way the thrushes in Kensington Gardens did not 
sing on New Year’s Day : they were very quiet until January 5. 
On this day I noticed a hen yellowhammer close to the bridge 
over the Serpentine. The yellowhammer is on the whole very 
sedentary in its habits, and its occurrences in the middle of 
London are extremely rare, although it is a very common 
species in the neighbouring country. I expect the missel thrush 
nested in Kensington Gardens or Hyde Park, but cannot be 
sure. I heard its song on several occasions. 
The appearances of the black-headed gull in town are nowj, 
too common to attract much attention. From November to 
the middle of March they are to be seen almost daily in our 
parks. On February 24, some of these birds were hovering 
over the trees on the island in the Serpentine and apparently 
trying to pick off the young buds. They made various attempts 
to perch on the branches, but they were too slender, and though 
some managed to balance themselves for a short time it was 
only by aid of an occasional flap of the wings. The inclination 
of this species to perch on the trees in St. James’s Park was the 
subject of a letter in the Times of December 24 last, by Mr. 
Digby Pigott. The habit is quite well known and is not con- 
fined to the black-headed gull, for Bonaparte’s gull nests in trees 
and the herring gull occasionally does so. 
On February 24, a blackbird was singing near the Row ; 
this was the first I heard. When bicycling round Battersea 
Park before breakfast on the morning of Sunday, March 6 , 1 saw 
a blackbird which was nearly quite white. I was told the bird 
had been observed there throughout the winter (see the Field, 
March 12, 1898). A chaffinch was in full song in a tree over- 
hanging the Zoological Gardens on Alarch 4. 
It is always interesting to see how the crows fare in the 
nesting season owing to the persecution to which they have 
been subjected at the hands of the authorities. I am thankful 
to say that there were two nests in Kensington Gardens 
occupied in April last, and it is to be hoped that some young 
birds were reared. April is the most interesting month for 
