298 BIRD WATCHING 



' Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, 

 Whilst night's black agents to their prey do rouse.' 



" But they sank peacefully down, and all of evil 

 seemed to go, with their sweet, joyous, innocent, and 

 well-loved voices." 



Here is one last picture, and I would point out 

 that, on all these three occasions, when the rooks slept 

 in changed quarters, at a later time of the year, the 

 way in which they approached or entered the trees, 

 and the height at which they flew, varied, in a greater 

 or less degree, from what it had been before. 



" March 1 1 V^. — At 6.20 a small band of rooks comes 

 flapping along in the usual jog-trot way, and enters 

 the plantation. Some five minutes afterwards a very 

 large number sail up, flying at a great height, and 

 gather like a storm-cloud above it. They hang over 

 it, then drift, circling, a little, descending gradually on 

 outspread wings, till, when at a moderate height above 

 the tree-tops, they begin to shoot down into them in 

 the rapid, whizzing manner before described. But 

 they do not all do this at the same time. It is a 

 slow and gradual — in its first stages almost a solemn 

 — entry, and the shooting down itself becomes, 

 gradually, less rapid. How grand is this to witness ! 

 It is a living storm-cloud discharging its black winged 

 rain — a simile, indeed, which can hardly fail to suggest 

 itself, so apparent is the resemblance. At a distance, 

 I think, the two might be really confounded. The 

 gradual sinking of the birds, by fine gradations and 

 almost imperceptibly, from their vast height, is more 

 like an atmospheric than an organic phenomenon. 

 The effect is heightened by the loneliness and utter 

 silence, by the deepening shadows. Night sinks as 



