20 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



After a brief interval he reappears on the other side of 

 it, having travelled through and left his prey with his 

 brood in the nest there. Assured by his success his 

 mate follows now, and once having done it, they con- 

 tinue to bring caterpillars, apparently as fast as they can 

 pass between the trees and the bush. They always enter 

 the bush, which is scarcely two yards from me, on one 

 side, pass through in the same direction, and emerge on 

 the other side, having thus regular places of entrance 

 and exit. 



As I stand watching these birds a flock of rooks goes 

 over, they have left the nesting trees, and fly together 

 again. Perhaps this custom of nesting together in 

 adjacent trees and using the same one year after year 

 is not so free from cares and jealousies as the solitary 

 plan of the little white-throats here. Last March I 

 was standing near a rookery, noting the contention 

 and quarrelling, the downright tyranny, and brigandage 

 which is carried on there. The very sound of the cawing, 

 sharp and angry, conveys the impression of hate and 

 envy. 



Two rooks in succession flew to a nest the owners of 

 which were absent, and deliberately picked a great part 

 of it to pieces, taking the twigs for their own use. 

 Unless the rook, therefore, be ever in his castle his 

 labour is torn down, and, as with men in the fierce 

 struggle for wealth, the meanest advantages are seized 

 on. So strong is the rook's bill that he tears living twigs 

 of some size with it from the bough. The white-throats 

 were without such envy and contention. 



From hence the footpath, leaving the copse, descends 

 into a hollow, with a streamlet flowing through a little 

 meadow, barely an acre, with a pollard oak in the centre, 

 the rising ground on two >sides shutting out all but the 



