144 BRITISH BIRDS. 



taken up their abode. On the opposite side lived a 

 curious old civilian, %vho, observing from his study that 

 the birds often dropped senseless from their perch with- 

 out the cause of their so doing being apparent, set his 

 wits to work to find what it could be. Having plenty 

 of leisure, he weighed the matter over and over, till he 

 was fully satisfied that he had made a great discovery, 

 from which he expected, moreover, no little fame : he 

 even, it is said, wrote a treatise, describing circumstan- 

 tially what he had witnessed, and stated it as his settled 

 conviction, that the rooks w^ere subject to the falling 

 sickness. But what was the fact? A young gentle- 

 man, who lodged in an attic near to the rooks, amused 

 himself by silently thinning their numbers with a cross- 

 bow ! 



