220 ROOKS. 



page in the book of nature would be opened, filled with 

 much that " man's philosophy hath never dreamed of." 

 Without any assignable cause, a party will secede from 

 an old-established rookery and form a new one. A case 

 of this sort occurred about ten years ago, in the parish 

 of Alderley, in Cheshire. Seven pair of Rooks, supposed 

 to have corne from an old rookery about two miles dis- 

 tant, where an extent of wood admitted of unlimited 

 accommodation, took up their residence in a clump of 

 trees, and proceeded to build ; there they have continued 

 ever since, the number of nests increasing as follows. 

 In 1828, there were seven nests ; in 1829, nine ; in 

 1830, thirteen; in 1831, twenty-four; in 1832, thirty- 

 three ; in 1833, upwards of fifty; and in this latter year, 

 there was a proportionate increase, with colonies settling 

 in adjacent trees. Another instance of unaccountable 

 removal from an accustomed place of resort, occurred 

 within the last few years, in a comparatively small rookery 

 in the Palace Garden, in the city of Norwich. For 

 several years the birds had confined their nests to a few 

 trees immediatelyjin front of the house, when one season, 

 without any assignable cause, they took up a new posi- 

 tion on some trees, also in the garden, but about two 

 hundred yards distant, where they remained till the 

 Spring of 1847, when, before their nests were completed, 

 or young hatched, they disappeared altogether, and the 

 heretofore frequented trees are only now and then 

 resorted to by a few stray casual visitors. 



It has been said, that Rooks usually prefer elm-trees 

 for building, and it was observed, that in a mingled 

 grove of horse-chesnuts and elms, at Hawley, in Kent, 

 not a single nest was ever built in the horse-chesnut- 

 trees, though the elms were full of them. In the above 

 instance, however, they certainly gave the oak a prefer- 

 ence, leaving an elm-tree close at hand untenanted. 

 These birds, like the rest of their species, return at a 

 particular time in Autumn ; and for a few days, seem to 

 be very busy about their nests, as if preparing them for 



