338 INTBOBUCTIOK TO ZOOLOGY. 



grown ducks, give one of them a few blows, throw it on its 

 back, and forthwitii begin to tear it up. Such audacity is of 

 extremely rare occurrence. 



It is pleasant to think of birds in connexion with the locali- 

 ties in which they were observed. Our rambles along the shore 

 of the County Antrim have given us frequent opportunities of 

 noticing the Hooded-crows {Corvus comix) upon the beach : 

 they were not usually in ]jairs ; three were more frequently 

 seen than two, and five than four. There, too, near the basaltic 

 headlands of that noble coast, we have gazed with pleasure on 

 the Chough {Fregilus graculus), as it sailed above our head, 

 the brilliant red of its legs contrasting beautifully with the 

 glossy bluish-black of the plumage. 



There is, however, no bird of the family so weU known 

 throughout all the cultivated parts of the kingdom as the 

 Eook {Corvus frugilegiis), and as we prefer dwelling on that 

 which is common rather than on that which is rare, we devote 

 to its habits the space at our command. 



It is a social bird, fond of living about the abodes of man, 

 and even of building in the he-art of crowded cities. But it is 

 not with such haunts that its appearance is usually associated, 

 but with time-honoured mansions, and more especially lofty 

 trees, their chosen abodes during successive generations. 



Washington Irvmg has written respecting these birds,* in 

 his usual agreeable style. " They are," he says, " old estab- 

 lished housekeepers, high-minded gentlefolk, that have had 

 their hereditary abodes time out of mind ;" and he goes on in 

 the same amusing manner to describe, what " rather derogates 

 from the grave and honourable character of these ancient gentle- 

 folk, that during the architectural season they are subject to 

 great dissensions amona: themselves ; that they make no scruple 

 to defraud and plunder each other, and that sometimes the 

 rookery is a scene of hideous brawl and commotion, in conse- 

 quence of some delinquency of the kind." 



Mr. Macgillivray, when visiting a rookery t at night, "was 

 surprised to hear several rooks uttering a variety of soft clear 

 modulated notes, very unlike their usual cry. In the interval 

 I could distinguish," says he, "the faint shrill voice of the 

 newly -hatched young, which their mothers, I feel persuaded, 

 were fondling and coaxing in this manner. Indeed the sounds 



* The Rookery, Bracebridge Hall, 

 ■j- British Birds, vol. i. p. 549. 



