ROOK 795 



the Amidavad (p. 11), while Vidua principalis (Widow-bird) is the 

 " Koning Roodebec " or King of the same (c/". Layard, B. S. Afr. 

 pp. 192, 188). 



ROOK (Anglo-Saxon Hroc, Icelandic Hrdkr} Swedish Baka^ 

 Dutch Roek, Gaelic Rocas), the Corvus frugilegus of ornithology, and 

 throughout a great part of Europe the commonest and best-known 

 of the CROW-tribe. Beside its pre-eminently gregai-ious habits, which 

 did not escape the notice of Virgil {Georg. i. 382)^ and are so unlike 

 those of nearly every other member of the Corvidx^ the Rook is at 

 once distinguishable from the rest by commonly losing at an early 

 age the feathers from its face, leaving a bare, scabrous and greyish- 

 Avhite skin that is sufficiently visible at some distance. In the 

 comparatively rare cases in which these feathers persist, the Rook 

 may be readily known from the black form of Crow by the rich 

 purple gloss of its black plumage, especially on the head and neck, 

 the feathers of which are soft and not pointed. In a general way 

 the appearance and manners of the Rook are so well knoAvn, to 

 most inhabitants of the British Islands especially, that it is needless 

 here to dwell upon them, and particularly its habit of forming com- 

 munities in the breeding-season, which it possesses in a measure 

 beyond that of any other land-bird of the northern hemisphere. 

 Yet each of these communities, or rookeries, seems to have some 

 custom intrinsically its own, the details of which want of space 

 forbids any attempt to set before the reader. In a general way the 

 least-known part of the Rook's mode of life are facts relating to 

 its migration and geographical distribution. Though the great 

 majority of Rooks in Britain are sedentary, or only change their 

 abode to a very limited extent, it is now certain that a very consider- 

 able number visit this country in or towards autumn, not necessarily 

 to abide here, but merely to pass onward, like most other kinds of 

 birds, to winter further southward ; and, at the same season or even a 

 little earlier, it cannot be doubted that a large proportion of the young 

 of the year emigrate in the same direction. As a species the Rook 

 on the European continent only resides during the whole year 



^ The bird, however, does not inhabit Iceland, and the language to which the 

 word (from which is said to come the French Freux) belongs would perhaps be more 

 correctly termed Old Teutonic. There are many local German names of the same 

 origin, such as Booke, Eoiich, Ruch and others, but the bird is generally knowo 

 in Germany as the Saat-Krdhe, i.e. Seed- ( = Corn-) Crow. In Pomerania it was 

 formerly Korrock (A. von Homeyer, Zcitschr. fiir Orn. xiv. p. 136). 



- This is the more noteworthy as the district in which he was born and 

 educated is almost the only part of Italy in which the Rook breeds. Sliellej' 

 also very truly mentions the "legioned Rooks," to which he stood listening 

 "mid the mountains Euganean," in his Lines written among those hills. 



^ The winter-gatherings of one of the American species, though sufficiently 

 remarkable, seem to be in no way comparable to those of the Rook. 



