22 AUGUST 1931, Page 11

Since writing the above, we observe that The Times has

reidentified the bird on top of St. Paul's as a cormorant. This only makes matters worse. The cormorant (Phala- crocorax garbo, sometimes known as " the Swedish night- ingale ") is far heavier, commoner, and more unscrupulous than the heron. Moreover, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica it " breeds in societies at various stations " ; so it is clearly in the unrivalled amenities for nidification offered by our London termini that we must look for the motive of an invasion, which there is now more reason than ever to fear has been planned on a large scale, and which will last well into the 1932 nesting season.