WATCHING ROOKS 297 



came yesterday, five birds fly over the plantation but 

 do not go down into it. 



"At 6.15 a large, united flock of, perhaps, six or 

 seven hundred fly up from over the ploughed land 

 skirting the moor. They utter the ' chug-a, chug-a ' 

 note, characteristic of the homeward flight, but quietly ; 

 there is very little noise. Just before reaching the 

 plantation they make a sort of circling eddy in the 

 air becoming, as it were, two streams that drift 

 through each other then sail on together and circle 

 some three or four times exactly over it, before de- 

 scending into its midst. This they do without any 

 of the excited sweeping about of yesterday, and 

 though, of course, the voice of so many birds is con- 

 siderable, yet, comparatively, it is very subdued, and 

 in a very short time about five minutes they all 

 seem settled. Before long, however, some of them, 

 but quite an inconsiderable number, rise and fly about 

 over the trees again, but soon resettle, and there is, 

 now, a deepening silence. No one could imagine that 

 that little lonely clump of trees held all that great 

 army of birds. All, to-night, has been wonderfully 

 decorous. There was something majestic in the way 

 the rooks flew up slow-seeming yet swiftly-moving. 

 Their flight round, over the trees, before sinking, like 

 night and with the night, upon them, was a fine 

 sombre scene the thickening light (' light thickens 



and the crow '), the silent, lonely-spreading moor, 



the gloomy trees, and, above them, slow - circling 

 in the dusky air, that inky cloud of life. It 

 was gloomy, the effect saddening, yet with the joy 

 of nature's sadness. The spirit of Macbeth was 

 in it 'Here on this blasted heath' 



