PUNCTUALITY IN CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEST. 81 



legend would have us to believe tHey are in mating 

 on the fourteenth of February. Rooks are said to 

 be very punctual. Popular superstition declares 

 that the rook regularly lays the first stick of its 

 nest on the first day of March ; but their punctu- 

 ality is not quite so precise as this, although it 

 is remarkable enough on the whole. It appears 

 from some careful notes made by Mr. Bree, of 

 the time when these birds begin to build, that 

 from the ninth to the twelfth of March is the 

 more general period at which they do so. In 

 sixteen years they only once began on the third, 

 and in no instance went beyond the twelfth. 

 Eecords of the commencing of other birds are not 

 sufficiently numerous to afford us information as 

 to their regularity in respect to time, or other- 

 wise. 



As, with regard to the collection of mate- 

 rials, we had to narrate the pilfering propen- 

 sities of birds ; so, before closing our chapter 

 upon their general industry in constructing their 

 nests, we ought to mention that there are several 

 more serious robberies on record than those re- 

 lating to the theft of a few materials. Some- 

 times the entire structure is appropriated, the 



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