220 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



would fail to do so, as the branches, being so slender, 

 would not admit of sufficient purchase being used to 

 break them off. Yet he does feed on these fine acorns, 

 and obtains them in the following manner. Flying up 

 to the tree, he alights on these slender branches, and, 

 while swaying up and down, seizes the acorn firmly, and 

 then hangs suspended to it, his weight breaking it off, 

 when he flies to the ground with his prize and eats it 

 at leisure. Like all birds of the Crow tribe, the Rook 

 throws up the refuse of its food in the form of pellets, 

 and the ground under the nesting-trees and the branches 

 of the trees themselves are covered with them. Upon 

 examination, we find that they are for the most part 

 composed of the husks of grain, the hard wing cases of 

 insects, and small portions of gravel swallowed for the 

 purpose of aiding digestion. 



The Rook, though seeming to pass slowly through 

 the air, is a bird capable of rapid flight, and I have no 

 hesitation in saying that he often flies at from fifty to 

 sixty miles an hour, or even more. He is a bird pos- 

 sessing great control over himself in the air. Some- 

 times when far up in the heavens he will, by alternately 

 turning his back and breast to you, alight on the ground 

 directly beneath him. This motion in the country is 

 termed * shooting,' and the country people will tell you 

 that it foretells wind. But as far as my own observations 

 go, this motion is only used by the bird when desirous of 

 alighting on ground directly beneath him, and the youns^ 

 naturalist may rest assured that the Rook is not affected 

 in the slightest degree by yEolus, the god said to preside 

 over the winds of heaven. 



Though the Rook lives near our dwellings and allows 

 us to examine him closely when in the nesting-trees, still 

 he is a shy and wary bird. The country rustic will stoutly 



