142 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



communal pride combined to welcome the young 

 generation on their first unsteady excursions among 

 the branches. And just in the crowning hour of 

 success, with all kinds of care behind and the 

 glorious summer before, comes this heart-breaking 

 tragedy. It is now, by general consent, admitted 

 that birds of the crow family possess the highest 

 development of avian intelligence, and the fact 

 lends credibility to the belief that the massacre 

 means more to them than to most birds liable to 

 a similar experience. This, of course, may be 

 no more than an impression of the senses. Grouse, 

 after a drive, slip away into the heather, and if 

 they lament the losses of the tribe they make no 

 show of it. An outraged rookery, on the other 

 hand, gives every evidence of lamentation. Hours 

 after the slaughter has stopped they are still on 

 the wing, at a great height above the scene of 

 it, deploring with hoarse outcry the injury their 

 community has suffered, and, doubtless, expressing 

 their opinion of the hideous barbarity of the 

 destroyer man. To birds of most species the 

 sight of a dead member of their kind is quite 

 without meaning. The rook is intelligent enough 

 to realize that there is something sinister and of 

 ill -omen about a dead rook. Farmers learnt this 

 long ago, when they found that a dead rook 

 hung on a stick makes a genuine scarecrow ; 

 and the fact is still more strikingly shown when 

 a feeding flock comes without warning upon a 

 dead rook lying on the ploughed land. When 

 this happens the host fly with vast clamour to the 

 nearest trees, and debate the horror with an 



