OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 385 



That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, 

 sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I think I have 

 observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to settle on the ground 

 and pick up insects of some kind or other. MARKWICK. 



ROOKS. 



Rooks are continually fighting, and pulling each other's nests 

 to pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such 

 close community. And yet if a pair offer to build on a single 

 tree, the nest is plundered and demolished at once. Some rooks 

 roost on their nest trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in 

 building supply the poor with brushwood to light their fires. 

 Some unhappy pairs are not permitted to finish any nest till the 

 rest have completed their building. As soon as they get a few 

 sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As 

 soon as rooks have finished their nests, and before they lay, the 

 cocks begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a 

 fondling tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little 

 blandishments that are expressed by the young, while in a help- 

 less state. This gallant deportment of the males is continued 

 through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not 

 copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the 

 open fields. WHITE. 



After the first brood of rooks is sufficiently fledged, they all 

 leave their nest trees in the day-time, and resort to some distant 

 place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast 

 flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round several times 

 with much noise and clamour till they are all assembled together, 

 they take up their abode for the night. MARKWICK 



THRUSHES. 



Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunting 

 out shell snails, which they pull to pieces for their young, and are 

 thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel thrushes do not 



