OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY 



THE cawing of the rooks in February shows that the 

 time is coming when their nests will be re-occupied. 

 They resort to the trees, and perch above the old 

 nests to indicate their rights ; for in the rookery pos- 

 session is the law, and not nine-tenths of it only. In 

 the slow dull cold of winter even these noisy birds 

 are quiet, and as the vast flocks pass over, night and 

 morning, to and from the woods in which they roost, 

 there is scarcely a sound. Through the mist their 

 black wings advance in silence, the jackdaws with 

 them are chilled into unwonted quiet, and unless you 

 chance to look up the crowd may go over unnoticed. 

 But so soon as the waters begin to make a sound in 

 February, running in the ditches and splashing over 

 stones, the rooks commence the speeches and conver- 

 sations which will continue till late into the following 

 autumn. 



The general idea is that they pair in February, but 

 there are some reasons for thinking that the rooks, 

 in fact, choose their mates at the end of the preceding 

 summer. They are then in large flocks, and if only 

 casually glanced at appear mixed together without 

 any order or arrangement. They move on the 

 ground and fly in the air so close, one beside the other, 

 that at the first glance or so you cannot distinguish 

 them apart. Yet if you should be lingering along 

 the by-ways of the fields as the acorns fall, and the 

 leaves come rustling down in the warm sunny autumn 

 afternoons, and keep an observant eye upon the rooks 

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