BIRDS IN THE EVENING 



An Odyssey of Rooks 



There are so many figures and phases in the mid- 

 air exercises of rooks at roosting time now that I 

 see something fresh and even beautiful almost each 

 time I look. Lately the rooks have begun these 

 exercises so early as five o'clock in the evening, and 

 on and off have continued them till six. At some 

 time in the day, perhaps the first thing in the morn- 

 ing, birds whose roosting quarters are at different 

 though neighbouring rookeries meet and feed 

 together. A sociable instinct, society for its own 

 sweet sake, may be one reason for this gathering. 

 When the evening draws on, the flock rises and 

 wings home to one of the rookeries to which a 

 certain number of the birds belong. 



Here, after much mysterious preliminary, the 

 flock divides into two halves. One stays at the 

 rookery already reached though it by no means 

 settles down at once to rest and silence the other 

 eventually gathers itself together and goes off to the 

 neighbouring rookery or roosting quarter to which 

 it is attached, where its autumn day at length will 

 end. The division into the two parties takes place 

 high in air at a little distance from the roosting trees 

 of the first rookery reached. How is it effected and 

 carried through ? I do not believe for a moment 

 that there is here anything resembling leadership or 

 generalship in human affairs. There is something 

 which I can only call a spirit of the flock that 



245 



