Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/217

Rh that same Palace, on June 28th, 1837. Even now the younger scions of our royal family can hear the "caws" of the old and the feeble cries of the young Rooks, descendants of the old colony, now, alas! reduced to thirty-one nests, and confined to a few of the upper trees skirting the broad walk near the North Gate.

A few years ago a pair of Rooks took possession of the plane tree in the grounds of the Deputy Ranger of Hyde Park. The colony increased, and numbered ten nests in 1870; dwindled again to two in 1874; increased to seven in 1877; and again diminished to two in 1878. Some new buildings have been erected close by: this may be the cause of the diminution at the present time.

A Rookery formerly existed in the Green Park, in the elm trees at the end of the garden belonging to the Green Park Lodge, the residence (if my memory serves me) of the late Princess Amelia. When the Lodge was pulled down some of the trees were also destroyed and the Rooks all left. The Rookery in Chesterfield Gardens then existed, but 1 think about this time the nests in Wharncliffe Gardens were commenced, and (as I suspect) by the Rooks from the Green Park which migrated from those trees.

If the great Lord Chesterfield could revisit the scene of his greatness here on earth, what would he see? His house remains, it is true, but in what desolation! The garden, described by Beckford as the finest private garden in London, entirely destroyed and covered with modern mansions; the stately elms, with their sable inhabitants, all gone; the beautiful colonnade in the courtyard demolished; nothing but the mansion left, despoiled of all its beauty and significance! In those old elms above that old bulging wall in Curzon Street there were, in 1846, close upon fifty nests, and two in Lord Wharncliffe's garden. Now the trees are all gone and the Rooks too. The colony in Wharncliffe Gardens has increased from two to ten nests, which are at present confined to three or four plane trees behind the mansion. A year or two ago there were a few in trees in the outer garden.

In 1875 a Rook's nest was built and the young hatched in a tree at the back of Hereford Square, Brompton. The following year the birds with returned others, and ten nests were built in the fine elm and plane trees there, thus establishing a fine colony.

A Rookery formerly existed in the trees in the Gardens of Carlton House; but this was destroyed in 1827, when the trees