460 THE ROOK. 



observant Shakespeare says, " to the rooky wood," when " light 

 thickens" and 



"Good things of day begin to droop and drouse, 

 While night's black agents to their prey do rouse ;" 



Or, when searching for limpets on the rocks in winter, following 

 the plough in spring, or sedately walking about our streets, 

 along with jackdaws, at early dawn, there, in company, will you 

 see the rook, like good church attenders on their way to their 

 pews, or farmers to the Cross on market days — " at kirk or 

 market" always together, and, what cannot be said of man, 

 always in harmony, except when building their nests, although 

 I have seen them fighting like gamecocks on the ground, using 

 wings, beak, and feet. Of all birds it is the most openly 

 consistent in telling us when it repairs or builds. On the first 

 of March, if the weather is favourable, and, unless their nest be 

 harried, they have no uncertain two or more broods in the year, 

 for, like Lammas Market, with its faddishly maligned switch- 

 backs, sweetie-stands, caravans, and noise, the cawing of the 

 rooks in company at Nature's call to perpetuate their "kind" 

 comes only once in the year. They openly proclaim one brood in 

 the one year — like one man one vote — but of equal value. At 

 least I never bird-nested with the same certainty of finding 

 nests as in April or May, when the hawthorn, like the flowers, 

 begin to put on their summer dress, for, except our solar system, 

 there is no hard and fast line in the minor laws of Nature. 

 But although young rooks fly as early as May 6th, they have no 

 other brood that year. Their nest of sticks, lined with dry 

 grass, &c, is not so deep as the carrion crow's. The eggs — five 

 — are also less — 1 \ by \\ — bluish green, blotched with dark 

 brown. The bill, though as long, is not so strong. It is 2J, 

 but it looks longer by the bare skin being as far as the eyes. 

 The head is less and seems more so from the same cause. The 

 plumage is deep black, glossed blue and purple ; bill, legs, and 

 claws also black. The only place that seems white is the scurfy 

 skin at its base ; but pure white ones are seen as freaks of 

 nature. While sitting on her eggs the female is supplied by 

 the male with food, in getting which she flutters her wings like 

 the young. The old remain paired all year. Moulting begins 

 and ends in September ; beginning at the head, is gradual, so as 

 not to impede flight — not like the poor crab, which casts all its 

 shell at once, and lies helpless in a warm dub close inshore — a 

 prey to every bird or fish that needs unresisting life, and, as a 



