like to trust my own memory on this point, though I think I have reason to remember the nests in these gardens at a prior date, but Yarrells evidence on the point is conclusive. In July 1839 he spoke (Brit. Birds, ed. 1, vol. ii., p. 92) unmistakably of this' Kookery being already long established.*
The witness cited by Dr. Hamilton is doubtless right in saying that he remembered no Rooks or Rooks' nests in the Temple Gardens for forty or fifty years. It is true that the 'History of Epsom,' published in 1825 anonymously, but believed (as I learn through Mr. Harting's courtesy) to have been written by Mr Pownall and the late Mr. Everest, speaks (p. 130) of it as then existing; but Rennie, only six years later ('Architecture of Birds ' p. 220), wrote of it as being "long abandoned"; and this is a point on which Rennie could hardly have been mistaken. The strange story of the establishment of this Rookery by Sir William Northey will, I hope, in the course of time be confirmed by further evidence. I can hardly accept it at present, and yet I should like to believe it.
With regard to the Rook's nest at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside, I have to remark that had Dr. Hamilton referred to' the later editions of Yarrell's 'British Birds,' published in 1845 and 1856 (vol. ii., p. 92 and p. 96), he would have seen that the state- ment originally published in 1839 was modified according to experience, and moreover that Mr. Harting's authority for their being two nests in the tree in 1845 was Yarrell himself, who also first recorded the nest begun on the vane of St. Olave's, Crutched Friars, in 1838 (' British Birds,' ed. 1, vol. ii., p. 92).
It may be here worth while copying a passage from the some- what scarce and now little read 'Ornithologia' of James Jennings (ed. 2, p. 75):—
Carlton Palace Gardens ; but the trees having been cut down to make room for the improvements going on there, the Rooks have removed this spring (1827) to some trees behind the houses in New Street, Spring Gardens.
His words are : — "In the gardens of two noblemen in Curzon Street, May Fair,
a considerable number of Rooks have built for many years." Now anyone who
knew London at that time must be aware that these two gardens were those of
Chesterfield House, whose Rookery has only ceased within the last few years to
exist (could not Dr. Hamilton give the exact date of its extinction ?), and of
