ROOKS. 199 



the whole rookery manifested such an attachment towards him, 

 as led them to desert their former habitation and accompany 

 him to his new abode, which was about three-quarters of a 

 mile off, and there they have continued to nourish ever since. 

 It should be added, that this person was strongly attached to 

 all animals whatsoever, and that he always experienced a strik- 

 ing return of affection even from the least docile of them. 



Could we dive into all the mysteries of a rookery, a 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 

 some years ago, in the parish of Alderley, in Cheshire. Seven 

 pair of Rooks, supposed to have come from an old rookery 

 about two miles distant, 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 in- 

 crease, with colonies settling in adjacent trees. Another in- 

 stance 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 immediately in front of the house, when one season, with- 

 out any assignable cause, they took up a new position 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 fcr 

 building, and it was observed, that in a mingled grove of 

 horse-chestnuts and elms at Hawley, in Kent, not a single nest 

 was ever built in the horse-chestnut trees, though the elms were 

 full of them. This is probably because the chestnut tree affords 



