98 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



youngsters are very nervous, and the old bird's patience is 

 sometimes so sorely tried that, having coaxed them to fly 

 in vain, she pushes them off the branch at last. Once on 

 the ground they soon learn what to eat, and how to find it ; 

 but the instinct to go to the parents for food is so absurdly 

 persistent, that you may often see a rook that looks as big as 

 its mother, hurriedly gobbling up its own worm, in order 

 to go and ask its mother for hers. And the gravity with 

 which the old bird swallows the worm herself, and then turns 

 to the overgrown young one, with a " Don't you wish you 

 may get it, my dear ? " is delightful. So tenacious are these 

 birds of their old haunts that they are still to be found 

 building in the central postal district of London, although 

 the steady growth of the city makes the distances they have 

 to fly for food longer and longer every year, while the perils 

 they have to encounter on the way, telegraph and telephone 

 wires, are annually accumulating. But there they are, in 

 spite of growing London, and are the very first to bring the 

 news to the city that spring is coming in the country. 



