BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN 
ALL March the rooks were busy in the 
swaying elms, but it is these softer 
evenings of April, when the first young 
leaves are beginning to frame the finished 
nests, and the boisterous winds of last month 
no longer drown the babble of the tree-top 
parliament at the still hour when farm 
labourers are homing from the fields, that 
the rooks peculiarly strike their own note in 
the country scene. There is no good reason 
to confuse these curious and interesting fowl 
with any other of the crow family. Collectively 
they may be recognised by their love of fel- 
lowship, for none are more sociable than they. 
Individually the rook is stamped unmistak- 
ably by the bald patch on the face, where the 
feathers have come away round the base of 
the beak. The most generally accepted ex- 
planation of this disfigurement is the rook's 
habit of thrusting its bill deep in the earth in 
search of its daily food. This, on the face of 
it, looks like a reasonable explanation, but 
it should be borne in mind that not only do 
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