468 



THE ROOK. 



their power of counting, he took three persons with him, and 

 again, after intervals, sent one by one away. This succeeded, for on 

 the third person leaving the hut, they settled on the field, and he 

 shot two. They could count as far as three, but, without practice, 

 four seemed beyond their power. Like the rest of its genera, 

 the rook is a slow flier, yet it can fly 25 miles an hour ; but the 

 heavy wild goose can fly 90 miles. Poets associate the rook with 

 dusk and gloom, from the habit of wending its way slowly home to 

 the " rooky wood" just before dark. For instance, Shakespeare 

 makes Macbeth say to his wondering wife, after having planned 

 the murder of Bancho, and his son Fleance at night — 



" Come, seeling night, 

 Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, 

 And with thy bloody and invisible hand 

 Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond 

 Which keeps me pale ! Light thickens, and the crow 

 Makes winy to the rooky wood. 

 Good things of day begin to droop and drouse, 

 While night's black agents to their prey do rouse. 

 Thou marvell'st at my words ; but hold thee still, 

 Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. 



And Burns in his " Cottar's Saturday Night" says — 



" November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh, 

 The short'ning winter day is near a close ; 

 The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, 

 The black' ning trains o' craws to their repose." 



Southey also in his poem " On Contemplation" exclaims — 



"Faint gleams the evening radiance through the sky ; 

 The redbreast on the blossomed spray 

 Warbles wild his latest lay. 

 And, lo ! the rooks to yon high tufted trees 

 Wing in long files, vociferous, their way." 



But, like white blackbirds, there are sometimes pure white 

 rooks. Two out of one nest were shot, their bills, legs, feet, and 

 claws also white. 



