312 NATURAL HISTORY 
field away down towards Dorton, where, among 
the streams and meadows, they find a greater plen- 
ty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to 
be noisy: their notes, often repeated, become sig- 
nals or watchwords to keep them together, that 
they may not stray or lose each other in the dark. 
The evening proceedings and maneuvres of the 
rooks are curious and amusing in the autumh, 
Just before dusk they return in long strings from 
the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by thou. 
sands over Selborne Down, where they wheel round 
in the air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, 
all the while exerting their voices, and making a 
loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by 
the distance that we at the village are below them, 
becomes a confused noise or chiding, or, rather, a 
pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, 
and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hol- 
low, echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in 
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