OBSERVED nr HERTFORDSHIRE IN 1889 . 
91 
young birds, four in number, are in general equally divided in 
plumage, there being two of each sort. The hooded crow possesses 
all the bad qualities of the carrion crow; a more mischievous bird, 
especially on the moors, does not exist. He seeks out the nests of 
the grouse, from which he takes, one by one, every egg, and he is 
equally destructive to the young birds. Unlike the hawk, who is 
contented with a single bird, if big enough to furnish a dinner, he 
never ceases his murderous onslaught until he has removed every 
egg, or killed every young bird. What he cannot eat he hides or 
buries. The hawk is not nearly so mischievous; having made a 
plentiful meal, he resorts to a tree or rock, and patiently awaits 
the satisfactory process of digestion. 
The nightingale, like the cuckoo, was very numerous last year. 
The earliest record I have of his song being heard is the 16th of 
April, and Mr. Lewis was informed, and apparently credits the 
report, that he was heard to sing as late as the 6th of August, and 
again on the 21st. I confess I have no faith in either report. 
Several birds, the thrush especially, frequently imitate the song of 
the nightingale. 
Dr. Brett reported on the 15th of January the murder of two 
hawks, one a sparrow-hawk, a bird now, alas! as rare as formerly 
it was common. The other he described as having a spotted breast, 
and it was no doubt that most useful and harmless bird, the kestrel. 
Hext to the owl, the farmer has no better friend than the kestrel. 
One, described as a sparrow-hawk, was lately mentioned in the 
‘ Times ’ as having been seen in Kensington Gardens. The fact 
that he was “ hovering ” leads me to think that it was the kestrel, 
and not the sparrow-hawk, who, I think, never “hovers,” and is 
a much more rare bird. At the same time, a green woodpecker 
was observed.* Yarrell, in his ‘ British Birds/ states that 
formerly all the woodpeckers were common in Kensington Gardens, 
our fauna at that time containing but three, of which the lesser 
spotted woodpecker recorded by Mr. Leiws, is the most rare. 
Great flights of peewits, or green plovers, passed over "Watford 
immediately before the bad weather we experienced towards the 
end of January. Gulls, too, were observed in the neighbourhood, 
a sure sign of the approach of stormy weather. 
I saw a pair of gulls flying over Cassiobury Park on the 18th of 
August, and immediately afterwards we were visited with a 
spell of bad weather. Walter Scott, a keen observer of nature, 
in the pathetic ballad of ‘ Bosabelle/ refers to the habit these birds 
have of seeking the mainland before a storm: 
“ To inch and rock the sea-mews fly.” 
* Gamekeepers and foresters have combined to extirpate this beautiful and 
harmless bird; the former, on the general principle that all birds bigger than a 
thrush, and not on the game list, should be destroyed; the latter, under the 
mistaken notion that it injures the tree by boring holes in it. In fact, the wood¬ 
pecker’s bill is no more capable of puncturing a solid bit of healthy wood than it 
is of a rock, or a brick wall. When “ tapping the hollow beech tree” he is 
simply searching the decayed timber for the mischievous insects that have caused 
and perpetuate the mischief. 
