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CORVID^E. 



of country life in England, abound in anecdotes of the 

 Rook. Its intelligence, instinctive appreciation of danger, 

 voracity, its utility or the reverse, its nesting, its morning 

 repasts and its evening nights, have all been observed and 

 more or less faithfully recorded again and again ; so that 

 its biography is better known than that of any other 

 British bird. It would be no difficult task to compile 



from these materials a good-sized volume, yet I doubt not 

 that enough remains untold, or at least not sufficiently 

 authenticated, to furnish a fair field of inquiry to any com- 

 petent person who would undertake to devote his whole 

 attention to this one bird for a considerable period of time. 

 Such a biographer should make himself master of all that 

 has been recorded by various authorities, and should 



