THE FAERY YEAR 



at this season, his solemn gait> is often ludicrous. 

 But he is never more so than when he musters up 

 courage to come down into gardens and paddocks 

 close to the house in search of fragments of food 

 and refuse. An intense nervousness marks the bird 

 then. The least sound disconcerts him. He hardly 

 dare thrust beak into grass to seize a morsel of food, 

 lest, at the moment of unguarded looking down, 

 some danger should arise. And when the rook is 

 feeding thus, we see him start and jump and flip his 

 wings in a state of nervousness, an alertness for 

 instant flight, which is very droll. 



Starlings placidly feeding around, and still nearer 

 the house, do not lull him into a feeling of security. 

 No meal of the rook is more fearful than this. If 

 he espies a large piece of bread or potato, and, after 

 many sharp glances around and listenings, seizes it, 

 he dare not break up and eat it on the spot. The 

 food is taken away, preferably to the middle of a 

 field, and eaten there. Rook-shooting once a year 

 and rook-scaring at various seasons are at the root of 

 this distrust of men and inhabited houses. Yet the 

 rooks find no place so to their liking for nest and 

 roost trees as those close to country houses and 

 villages. I do not know of rookeries in a large or 

 remote wood in any part of England, and if they 

 exist they are not common. The history of the 

 rookery has yet to be written. Engaging theories 

 have been started about rook custom, law, etiquette, 

 penalty. I fear they are chiefly of the fancy. The 

 society of the rookery may be based more on anarchy 

 74 



