The Natural History of Selborne 399 



in Latin buteo apivorus et vespivorus, but expressly says that " it 

 feeds on insects, and brings up its young with the maggots or 

 nymphs of wasps ? " 



That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, 

 sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I think I have 

 observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to settle on the ground 

 and pick up insects of some kind or other. MARKWICK. 



ROOKS. 



ROOKS are continually fighting, and pulling each other's nests to 

 pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close 

 community. And yet if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the 

 nest is plundered and demolished at once. Some rooks roost on 

 their nest trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building supply 

 the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs 

 are not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have completed* their 

 building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party comes 

 and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks have finished their 

 nests, and before they lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who 

 receive their bounty with a fondling tremulous voice and fluttering 

 wings, and all the little blandishments that are expressed by the 

 young, while in a helpless state. This gallant deportment of the 

 males is continued through the whole season of incubation. These 

 birds do not copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground 

 in the open fields. WHITE. 



After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all 

 leave their nest -trees in the day-time, and resort to some distant 

 place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast 

 flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round several times 

 with much noise and clamour till they are all assembled together, 

 they take up their abode for the night. MARKWICK. 



