1 12 
NATURE NOTES 
in enormous numbers to roost in the garden of Buckingham 
Palace : the noise they made chattering and squabbling before 
they settled down for the night was tremendous. I heard a 
blackbird singing in Hyde Park on February 26 — the first of the 
year ; though a friend told me she had heard one singing on 
Campden Hill on the previous day. 
The movements of London rooks are very hard to under- 
stand. In 1899 1 do not believe that any rooks nested in 
Connaught Square, though I frequently saw the birds on the 
trees where they had previously nested. But in 1900 there were, 
I think, thirteen nests in Connaught Square, of which twelve 
seemed to be complete, and when I carefully inspected the place 
on April 29, I came to the conclusion that eight were tenanted. 
But at the end of March there were also two nests — one an old 
one patched up — by the lodge of the Prince of Wales’ Gate on 
the south side of Hyde Park, and on April 3 I saw a bird 
sitting on the new and smaller nest.. It is recorded by Mr. H. 
Russell in the Zoologist (1900, p. 519) how another nest was 
begun shortly afterwards and how by the end of April the first 
nest had been demolished and a colony with nine nests had 
appeared in the trees in the yard of Kingston House on the 
opposite side of Kensington Road. I rather think that some of 
the Kingston House colony came from Connaught Square, but it 
is impossible to say so for certain. 
A late Easter took me out of town just at the right time for 
getting the first sight of the summer migrants, and it was not 
until April 19- — the day upon which so many great men have 
died — that I heard the willow wren singing in Kensington 
Gardens. Close by the willow wren were two beautiful male 
wheatears. There was a swallow flying over the Serpentine on 
April 25. Two pairs of crows built nests in the Gardens last 
summer, and in July I saw a party of five, four of these being, I 
believe, young birds hatched in one of these nests. On May 2 
I noticed a greater whitethroat in Kensington Gardens, on the 
7th a reed warbler, and on the loth a whinchat. Spotted fly- 
catchers had arrived on May 14: there were a good many of these 
birds in London throughout the summer — many more than 
usual. A pair of moorhens built a nest under the spouts of the 
fountain in one of the small ornamental basins close to the 
Bayswater Road, but the ducks interfered with them a good deal 
and I do not think that any eggs were hatched there. I saw 
nothing of particular interest during June. On July 24 I first 
noticed the male vapourer moth flying about in Hyde Park. It 
was a very hot day. The next morning was even hotter, and the 
fish in the Serpentine seemed to be close to the surface. Early 
in the morning I observed them jumping out of the water as the 
shadow of a wood pigeon, which was flying overhead, passed 
over them. I watched this happening two or three times, and 
on each occasion, as birds flew across, the course of their 
shadows over the surface of the water was marked by jump- 
ing fish. 
