158 RIVERSIDE LETTERS xxi 



house, the west, in which the reflection would 

 have been seen equally well but to which it 

 never went. 



Another little bird puzzle has occupied my 

 mind lately, which is, that throughout the hot 

 dry weather we have had for the last fortnight, 

 a pair of rooks have taken to feeding on the 

 lawn, just beneath the sycamore tree, every 

 morning for an hour or two. I am quite sure 

 it is the same pair, as I have looked at them 

 very carefully ; they walk about always over 

 the same spot, pecking at the ground much as 

 the starlings do. I call it the same spot, as the 

 area over which they walk is very limited. 

 The puzzle to me is what they find to eat. 

 The grass just there is almost brown with 

 the drought, the only living things on it that 

 I can discover being a few ants and some 

 earwigs ; but there are many more of these 

 insects on other parts of the lawn to which 

 the rooks do not seem to go. And why have 

 these rooks deserted their companions, unless 

 they have been ostracised by them for some 



