i?o BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



and other noxious grubs ; in the fallows, whilst he doubtless swallows a little 

 grain, he does incalculable good by destroying wireworms and larvae of cock- 

 chafers, whilst in the turnip-fields he not only devours such examples of the 

 latter grubs as he can find, but does considerable execution upon the dreaded 

 and destructive caterpillar of a common moth (A gratis segdiim). 



The nests are generally placed in the upper branches of tall trees ; either in 

 copses, plantations, pleasure-grounds, parks, or when planted in rows bounding 

 the margin of a pasture, or forming an avenue over a country road ; but 

 Stevenson rightly says : " Though for the most part selecting the tallest trees, 

 and placing their nest near the upper branches, they will build also on low 

 Scotch firs, in the most exposed situations," and he adds : " A still more novel 

 site has also been chosen by a few pairs at Spixworth Park, where, for the last 

 two or three seasons, they have built in the tops of some fine laurestinus bushes, 

 about twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, and others in a dwarf ilex, close 

 to a flight of stone steps, connecting one part of the garden with the other, yet 

 so low down that the feeding of the young was plainly visible from the windows 

 of the hall." When a rookery is well established, the birds are not easily 

 persuaded to abandon it, excepting for private reasons of their own; moreover the 

 continual noises of a great city do not seem to disturb them at all, as is evident 

 from the fact that Rooks still build and breed in the old trees which have been 

 left standing in the busiest parts of London.* 



The nest is usually commenced or repaired early in March, but after 

 unusually mild winters building operations sometimes commence much earlier. 

 After the exceptionally open winter of 1895-6 I saw several young Rooks sitting 

 just outside the nests in which they had been hatched as early as the 6th March, 

 whilst I had noticed the Rooks in a rookery close to my house repairing their 

 nests in January, and in February a pair daily visited my garden for worms : a 

 friend of mine living at Dulwich first directed my attention to the early pre- 

 parations for nesting made by these birds, assuring me in January that he had 

 seen a pair of Rooks carrying sticks up to their nest. In the 'Feathered World' 

 for April 24th, 1896, Mr. W. N. Rush en says : " I saw two young Rooks near 

 Wanstead Park, on April 8th, which were as strong on the wing as their parents; 

 and, to be as forward as this, they must have left the nest for some weeks." t 



The structure is usually very compact, formed of strong sticks and twigs, 



* Sometimes the nest is said to be placed on chimneys, ornaments of church-spires, and rarely on the 

 ground. 



t Mr. Rushen is well-known to readers of this paper as one of its most reliable contributors; a keen 

 student and enthusiastic lover of our British birds. 



