BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN 



ally bullying weaker neighbours out of their 

 hard-earned spoils. The rook is a villain, yet 

 there is something irresistible in the effrontery 

 with which one will hop sidelong on a gorging 

 gull, which beats a hasty retreat before its 

 sable rival, leaving some half-prized shellfish 

 to be swallowed at sight or carried to the 

 greedy little beaks in the tree-tops. While 

 rooks are far more sociable than crows, the 

 two are often seen in company, not always on 

 the best of terms, but usually in a condition 

 suggestive of armed neutrality. An occasional 

 crow visits my estuary at low tide, but, 

 though the bird would be a match for any 

 single rook, I never saw any fighting between 

 them. Possibly the crow feels its loneliness 

 and realises that in case of trouble none of 

 its brothers are there to see fair play. Yet 

 carrion crows, like herons, are among the 

 rook's most determined enemies, and cases 

 of rookeries being destroyed by both birds 

 are on record. On the other hand, though the 

 heron is the far more powerful bird of the two, 

 heronries have likewise been scattered, and 

 their trees appropriated, by rooks, probably 

 in overwhelming numbers. Of the two the 

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