WATCHING ROOKS 269 



first bird is passed by two others, then passes one 

 of these again, and remains the second as long as I 

 can see them. 



" Another long flight that seems leaderless. With 

 the ' caw ' comes a note like ' chug-a, chug-a, chug-a ' 

 (but the u more as in Spanish), and others that I 

 cannot transcribe. This flight goes on almost con- 

 tinuously — I mean without a distinct gap dividing it 

 from another band — for about ten minutes, when an- 

 other great multitude appears, flying at an immense 

 height and all abreast, as it were — that is to say, 

 a hundred or so in a long line of only a few birds 

 deep. This, perhaps, would be the formation best 

 adapted for observing and following one bird that 

 flew well in front, but I can see no such one. All 

 these birds are sailing calmly and serenely along, 

 giving only now and again an occasional stroke or 

 two with the wings. Now comes a further great 

 assembly, in loose order, all flying in the same direc- 

 tion. A characteristic of these large flights of rooks 

 is that their van will often pause in the air and 

 then wheel back, circling out to either side. The 

 rearguard is thus checked in its advance, the birds 

 of either section streaming through each other, till 

 the whole body, after circling and hanging in the 

 air for a little, like a black eddying snowstorm (all 

 at a great height), wend on again in the same direc- 

 tion, towards their distant roosting-place. With the 

 air full of the voice of the birds, there is no caw — 

 only the flexible, croodling, chirruppy note that has 

 a good deal of music in it, as well as of expression. 

 This note, I think, is what I have put down as 

 ' chug-a, chug-a, chug-a.' 



