BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN 
ally bullying weaker neighbours out of their 
hard-earned spoils. The rook is a villain, yet 
there is something irresistible in the effrontery 
with which one will hop sidelong on a gorging 
gull, which beats a hasty retreat before its 
sable rival, leaving some half-prized shellfish 
to be swallowed at sight or carried to the 
greedy little beaks in the tree-tops. While 
rooks are far more sociable than crows, the 
two are often seen in company, not always on 
the best of terms, but usually in a condition 
suggestive of armed neutrality. An occasional 
crow visits my estuary at low tide, but, 
though the bird would be a match for any 
single rook, I never saw any fighting between 
them. Possibly the crow feels its loneliness 
and realises that in case of trouble none of 
its brothers are there to see fair play. Yet 
carrion crows, like herons, are among the 
rook's most determined enemies, and cases 
of rookeries being destroyed by both birds 
are on record. On the other hand, though the 
heron is the far more powerful bird of the two, 
heronries have likewise been scattered, and 
their trees appropriated, by rooks, probably 
in overwhelming numbers. Of the two the 
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