WATCHING ROOKS 297 



came yesterday, five birds fly over the plantation but 

 do not go down into it. 



"At 6.15 a large, united flock of, perhaps, six or 

 seven hundred fly up from over the ploughed land 

 skirting the moor. They utter the 'chug-a, chug-a' 

 note, characteristic of the homeward flight, but quietly; 

 there is very little noise. Just before reaching the 

 plantation they make a sort of circling eddy in the 

 air — becoming, as it were, two streams that drift 

 through each other — then sail on together and circle 

 some three or four times exactly over it, before de- 

 scending into its midst. This they do without any 

 of the excited sweeping about of yesterday, and 

 though, of course, the voice of so many birds is con- 

 siderable, yet, comparatively, it is very subdued, and 

 in a very short time — about five minutes — they all 

 seem settled. Before long, however, some of them, 

 but quite an inconsiderable number, rise and fly about 

 over the trees again, but soon resettle, and there is, 

 now, a deepening silence. No one could imagine that 

 that little lonely clump of trees held all that great 

 army of birds. All, to-night, has been wonderfully 

 decorous. There was something majestic in the way 

 the rooks flew up — slow-seeming yet swiftly-moving. 

 Their flight round, over the trees, before sinking, like 

 night and with the night, upon them, was a fine 

 sombre scene — the thickening light (' light thickens 



and the crow '), the silent, lonely-spreading moor, 



the gloomy trees, and, above them, slow -circling 

 in the dusky air, that inky cloud of life. It 

 was gloomy, the effect — saddening, yet with the joy 

 of nature's sadness. The spirit of Macbeth was 

 in it — ' Here on this blasted heath ' — 



