THE ROOK AND JACKDAW 39 



known. The cock birds, with wings trailing and tail wide-fanned, 

 strut the grass, bowing here and cawing there. Or they bring some 

 succulent morsel to their beloved, and she deigns to accept it with 

 quivering wings and stifled thanks. They will even "attempt some- 

 times, in the gaiety of their hearts, to sing, but with no great success." 

 So writes Gilbert White of rooks in the breeding season. But the 

 song, such as it is, is perhaps more frequently heard outside the 

 breeding season, uttered by individual birds after their morning 

 breakfast, when sitting perched on some high conspicuous bough. 

 This performance, like the one indulged in by the Fort Whipple 

 ravens (p. 12), appears to be simply a mode of giving audible expres- 

 sion to the agreeable feeling that accompanies the undisturbed diges- 

 tion of a generous meal. Hence, if Gilbert White is correct in 

 making the song part also of the rooks sexual display, it serves to give 

 expression to two quite distinct emotional states. The same applies 

 to the bowing and tail-fanning which have been observed to accompany 

 the song in every case of which we have a record. The tail dis- 

 play, in fact, is used by the rook as a mode of expression on three 

 different occasions when chattering to itself in an after-dinner mood, 

 when it challenges a neighbour either in sport or earnest, and 

 when courting. I have also seen birds, in winter, displaying a 

 beautiful black fan, when standing alone and apart from their 

 fellows, for no obvious reason except perhaps that they felt just 

 jolly. 



The song itself has been variously described. One writer speaks 

 of it as " a series of little consequential gabblings, punctuated from 

 time to time by a strident caw." Another gives it as "a guttural 

 reproduction of the varied and fluttering song of the starling," its 

 chief feature being " a peculiar deep single whistling note repeated 

 three or four times in succession." The resemblance to the starling's 

 song was heightened by the fluttering of the wings which accompanied 

 the performance. A third observer heard it begin with three loud 

 caws. On this occasion it was accompanied by an absurd motion of 



