THE ROOK. 305 



families keep the peace, I do not wish it to be understood that they 

 are upon visiting terms. In another part, a long-eared owl is rearing 

 her young in the last year's nest of a carrion crow. When the parent 

 bird is asleep, you can see very distinctly the erect feathers on the 

 head ; but the moment she gets a sight of you, down go the erect 

 feathers, and lie close to the head ; so that an inexperienced ob- 

 server might take the bird to be a tawny owl. This year, a wild 

 duck has chosen her place of incubation twelve feet from the 

 ground, in an oak tree near the water; while, in the immediate 

 vicinity, several magpies are hatching in undisturbed repose. 



I am sometimes questioned by country gentlemen (who have a 

 keen eye for jugged hare and roasted partridges) on the propriety of 

 befriending, what they consider, feathered vermin. I tell them that 

 Professor Rennie has remarked in the Magazine of Natural History, 

 vol. v., p. 102, "that I have hitherto published nothing respecting the 

 economy or faculties of animals, of the least use to natural history." 

 This being the case, I am trying to make up my deficiency in pen 

 and ink, by establishing a sylvan enclosure, which any ornithologist 

 is allowed to enter ; and where he will have an opportunity of cor- 

 recting, by actual observation, some of those errors which appear in 

 the Second Edition of " Montague," by James Rennie, A.M.A.L.S. 

 Moreover, sometimes, in a jocose kind of a way, I tell them I like 

 to have all kinds of birds around me ; and that I cannot find in my 

 heart to kill a poor jay for sucking an egg, when I know 



" That I myself, carnivorous sinner, 

 Had pullets yesterday for dinner.*' 



THE ROOK. 



LAST year, I partly promised that, on some dismal winter's evening, 

 I would sit me down and write the history of the rook. The period 

 has now arrived. Nothing can be more gloomy and tempestuous 

 than the present aspect of the heavens. The wind is roaring through 



U 



