BIRDS GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 323 



take care to rob it of the very choicest sticks of which it is 

 composed. But these thefts never go unpunished, and probably, 

 upon complaint being made, there is a general punishment 

 inflicted. I have seen eight or ten rooks come upon such 

 occasions, and, setting upon the new nest of the young couple, 

 all at once tear it to pieces in a moment. 



At length, however, the young pair find the necessity of 

 going more regularly to work. While one flies to fetch the 

 materials, the other sits upon the tree to guard it ; and thus in 

 the space of three or four days, with a skirmish now and then 

 between, the pair have filled up a commodious nest, composed 

 of sticks without, and of fibrous roots and long grass within. 

 From the instant the female begins to lay, all hostilities are at 

 an end ; not one of the whole grove, that a little before treated 

 her so rudely, will now venture to molest her, so that she 

 brings forth her brood with perfect tranquillity. Such is the 

 severity with which even native rooks are treated by each other ; 

 but if a foreign i-ook should attempt to make himself a denizen of 

 their society, he would meet with no favour, the whole grove 

 would at once be up in arms against him, and expel him with- 

 out mercy. 



Couch says (' Illustrations of Instinct,' p. 334 et seq.} : 

 The wrong- doers being discovered, the punishment is ap- 

 propriate to the offence ; by the destruction of their dishonest 

 work they are taught that they who build must find their own 

 bricks or sticks, and not their neighbours', and that if they wish 

 to live in the enjoyment of the advantages of the social con- 

 dition, they must endeavour to conform their actions to the 

 principles of the rookery of which they have been made 

 members. 



It is not known what enormities led to the institution of 

 another tribunal of the same kind, called the Crow Court, but ac- 

 cording to Dr. Edmonson, in his ' Yiew of the Shetland Islands,' 

 its proceedings are as authoritative and regular, and it is remark- 

 able as occurring in a species (Corvus Cornice) so near akin 

 to the rook. The Crow Court is a sort of general assembling of 

 birds who, in their usual habits, are accustomed to live in pairs, 

 scattered at great distances from each other ; when they visit 

 the south or west of England, as they do in severe winters, 

 they are commonly solitary. In their summer haunts in the 

 Shetland Islands, numbers meet together from different points 

 on a particular hill or field ; and on these occasions the assem- 

 bly is not complete, and does not begin its business for a day 

 or two, till, all the deputies having arrived, a general clamour 



