292 BIRD WATCHING 



But I see no other bird yawning, nor do I notice 

 any toilette, any preening of the feathers. 



" Now, at close on 7, the flight out is preceded by a 

 flight of the birds inside the plantation, from one tree 

 to another, and this passes, gradually, into the full 

 forth-streaming. Just above the trees, now, they pass 

 in endless flakes of a black and living snowstorm. 

 Their flight is swift, hurrying, joyous. They flap, 

 but there are, often, long sweeps on outspread wings, 

 between the flaps. And ever, as they fly, they greet 

 the cold, stern morning with their joy-song of ' chow- 

 how, a-chuck, a-chuck, a-chuck, a-chuck, a-chuck-a.' 



" Nearly a month later, a smaller, but still numerous, 

 body of the birds had chosen a new roosting-place a 

 clump of Scotch firs on a lonely heath, which had stood 

 vacant all the winter, a point interesting in itself, but 

 which for the old reason I am unable to discuss. 



"March ^th. I got to the plantation towards the 

 end of the afternoon, and resolved to wait there, in 

 order to see wood-pigeons fly into it in the evening. 

 Not many came, but at six o'clock I saw what I 

 thought was a large band of them fly into an oak-tree 

 which I had noticed just outside the plantation, where 

 they remained for a minute or two. They then flew 

 on to the plantation, sweeping over it once or twice 

 before settling, and I saw that they were rooks. As 

 will be seen from this, they had hitherto been silent. 

 When they had settled in the trees there was some 

 talking, but strangely little, I thought, for rooks, and 

 very soon afterwards there was hardly a sound. They 

 remained thus, for some little time. All at once, with 

 extraordinary suddenness, with a sound of wings so 

 compact and instantaneous that it was almost like the 



