308 OBSEEVATIONS ON BIEDS. 



with living in such close community. And yet, if a pair 

 offer to build in a single tree, the nest is plundered and 

 demolished at once. Some rooks roost on their nest trees. 

 The twigs which the rooks drop in building, supply the poor 

 with brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs 

 are not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have com- 

 pleted their building. As soon as they get a few sticks 

 together, a party comes and demolishes the whole.* As 

 soon as rooks have finished their nests, and before they 

 lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who receive their 

 bounty with a fondling, tremulous voice, and fluttering 

 wings, and all the little blandishments that are expressed by 

 the young, while in a helpless state. This gallant deport- 

 ment of the male is continued through the whole season of 

 incubation. These birds do not copulate on trees, nor in 

 their nests, but on the ground in the open fields.f 



WHITE. 



After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they 

 all leave their nest-trees in the day-time, and resort to some 

 distant place in search of food, but return regularly every 

 evening, in vast flights to their nest-trees, where, after flying 

 round several times, with much noise and clamour, till they 

 are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the 

 night. MAEKWICK. 



THETTSHES. Thrushes during long droughts, are of great 

 service in hunting out shell-snails, J which they pull in pieces 

 for their young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. 



November. On the 6th of December, one of them was found dead about 

 half grown. ED. 



* I have observed this to be the case with canaries when confined in breed- 

 ing cages, and also with hedge-sparrows. ED. 



f The very beautiful, one may almost say poetical, way in which the male 

 bird procures a mate by the power of his song, may be seen in the preface to 

 Mr. Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary, p. xxx ; from which thfs corollary 

 may be inferred, that if a confined bird had learned the song of another, with- 

 out retaining any part of its natural notes, and was set at liberty, it is probable 

 it would never find a mate of its own. MITFORD. 



J I have frequently observed thrushes place a shell-snail between two stones, 

 or a hollow in a gravel-walk, to prevent their rolling, and then picking them 

 till they broke them. ED. 



