FINCHES, STARLINGS AND CROWS 75 



He drove away rooks who tried to share it 

 with him, but as he carried away each bit to 

 eat in private the rooks took advantage of 

 his absence, and the supply did not last as 

 long as it might have done. 



The poor bird w r as uncommonly wary : he 

 would spy one out hundreds of yards away 

 and disappear in a wonderful manner, seeing 

 that he could not fly. At last some Ship 

 Canal workmen caught him. I got him from 

 them and kept him for three months, but 

 though he ate pretty well it did not seem to 

 do him much good, and he never became in 

 the least tame to the day of his death. 



We have often hoped that rooks would 

 build in the garden; they come sometimes to 

 the higher trees as though they had thoughts 

 of doing so, but they have not gone beyond 

 that as yet. In some years when acorns are 

 ripe many rooks come here to get them (in 

 1911, although acorns were extraordinarily 

 abundant, I hardly saw a single rook). I 

 have never seen them pick up the acorns on 

 the ground, as the jays and wood-pigeons do, 

 but they gather them fresh for themselves 

 from the tree. 



More than once I have seen a single rook 

 pursuing a hawk, and, on the other hand, I 

 have seen a rook put to flight by a missel- 

 thrush. 



Rather a strange story was told me of a 

 farmer's daughter at Heatley, near here. 



