62 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



moved — wriggled — in a very special and suggestive 

 manner, about which I shall have more to say when 

 I come to the peewit. Whilst the sitting bird was 

 behaving in this way, the other one of the pair — 

 which I put down as the female — stood beside him, 

 and as she occasionally bent forward towards him, 

 the black of her feathers becoming lost in his, I 

 felt assured that she was cossetting and caressing 

 him, much as the hen pigeon caresses the male, 

 whilst he sits brooding on the place where the nest 

 will be. There were also several other combats, 

 and more turnings of one bird out of the nest, by 

 another. At 3.15 four rooks sit perched on the 

 boughs, all round the great mass of sticks, but not 

 one upon it. One of the four bends the head, with 

 a look and motion as though about to hop down. 

 Instantly there is an excited cawing — half, as it 

 seems, remonstrative, half in the tone of " Well, if 

 you do, then I will, too," — from the other three, 

 which is responded to, of course, by the first, the 

 originator of the uproar, and then all four drop on 

 to the sticks, a pair upon each nest. By 3.20 every 

 rook is gone, but in ten minutes they are all back, 

 again, with much cawing. Four birds — the same four 

 as I suppose — are instantly on the great heap, but as 

 quickly off it, again, amongst the growing twigs, and 

 this takes place three or four times in succession. 

 Two others, though they never come down upon 

 the heap, remain close beside it, and seem to feel a 

 friendly interest in it. Sometimes they fly away 

 for a little, but they return, again, and sit there as 

 before, their right to do so seeming to be admitted. 

 Thus there are six birds in all, who seem primarily 



