ROOK ECCENTRICITIES 57 



solitary hawthorn bush, in the grey dawn of a cold 

 winter's morning. In the dank dreariness they 

 look as dank and dreary themselves, and seem to 

 be regretting having got up. There is, indeed, 

 som.ething particularly shabby and dismal-looking 

 in the aspect of the hooded crow, when seen under 

 unfavourable circumstances. They impress one, I 

 believe, as squalid savages would — as the Tierra del 

 Fuegians did Darwin. The rook, at all times, looks 

 much more civilised, even when quite alone. I 

 am not sure whether the latter bird, to return to 

 his occasional adoption of less social habits, ever 

 roosts alone, but I have some reason to suspect that 

 he does. I have seen one flying from an otherwise 

 untenanted clump of trees, before the general flight 

 out from the rook-roost, two or three miles distant, 

 had begun ; to judge by appearances, that is to 

 say, for the usual stream in one direction did not 

 begin till some little time afterwards. A populous 

 roosting-place drains the whole rook population of 

 the country, for a considerable distance all around it 

 — far beyond that at which this rook was from his — 

 and in January, which was the date of the observation, 

 such establishments would not have begun to break 

 up. This process, which leads to scattered parties 

 of the birds passing the night in various new places, 

 does not begin before March. 



I had heard this particular rook cawing, for some 

 time, before I saw it, and, on other occasions, I have 

 been struck by hearing solitary caws, in unfrequented 

 places, at a similarly early hour. Some rooks, there- 

 fore, may be less social in their ways than the 

 majority, and if these could be separately studied, 



