CHAPTER XI 

 Watching Rooks continued 



CONTINUING my journal, I will now give extracts 

 which illustrate, principally, the return home of the 

 rooks at night and their flying forth in the morning 

 those two aspects of their daily winter life which are 

 the most full, perhaps, both of interest and of poetry. 



" December gth, This afternoon at about 3.30 I find 

 vast numbers of rooks gathered together on a wide 

 sweep of land, close to their roosting-place. 



" Even now and they are being constantly rein- 

 forced they must amount to very many thousands, 

 and cover several acres, in some parts standing thickly 

 together, in others being more spread out. There is 

 an extraordinary babble of sound, a chattering note 

 and the flexible, croodling one being conspicuous. 

 Combats are frequent any two birds seem ready to 

 enter into one at any moment and they commence 

 either, apparently, by sudden mutual desire, or else by 

 one bird fixing a quarrel on another, which he does by 

 walking aggressively up to him and daring him, so to 

 speak. In fighting they stand front to front, and then 



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