HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



They keep together in pairs; and when 

 the offices of courtship are over, they prepare 

 for making their nests and laying. The old 

 inhabitants of the place are already provided ; 



it during a hard frost. Instead of being that active, 

 happy bird which he appears to be in summer, strut- 

 ting over a meadow, and either flirting with his mate, 

 or feeding one of his young ones who has had strength 

 enough to follow him, and who receives the food with 

 fluttering wings and tremulous note, he is now, on the 

 contrary, a moping, melancholy bird, appearing to avoid 

 his old companions, and to be without sufficient energy 

 even to seek for food, often remaining in one position 

 for a considerable length of time. 



There is one trait in the character of the rook which 

 is, I believe, peculiar to that bird, and which does him 

 no little credit, it is the distress which is exhibited 

 when one of them has been killed or wounded by a gun 

 while they have been feeding in a field or flying over it. 

 Instead of being scared away by the report of the gun, 

 leaving their wounded or dead companion to his fate, 

 they show the greatest anxiety and sympathy for him, 

 uttering cries of distress, and plainly proving that they 

 wish to render him assistance, by hovering over him, 

 or sometimes making a dart from the air close up to 

 him, apparently to try and find out the reason why he 

 did not follow them, 



" While circling round and round, 

 They call their lifeless comrade from the ground." 



If he is wounded, and can flutter along the ground, 

 the rooks appear to animate him to make fresh exer- 

 tions by incessant cries, flying a little distance before 

 him, and calling to him to follow them. I have seen 

 one of my labourers pick up a rook so wounded, which 

 he had shot at for the purpose of putting him up as 

 a scare-crow in a field of wheat, and while the poor 

 wounded bird was still fluttering in his hand, I have 

 observed one of his companions make a wheel round in 

 the air, and suddenly dart past him so as almost to 

 touch him, perhaps with a last hope that he might still 

 afford assistance to his unfortunate mate or companion. 

 Even when the dead bird has been hung, in terrorem, 

 to a stake in the field, he has been visited by some of 

 his former friends, but, as soon as they found that the 

 case was hopeless, they have generally abandoned that 

 field altogether. 



When one considers the instinctive care with which 

 rooks avoid any one carrying a gun, and which is so 

 evident, that I have often heard country people remark 

 that they can smell gunpowder, one can more justly 

 estimate the force of their love or friendship in thus 

 continuing to hover round a person, who has just de- 

 stroyed one of their companions with an instrument, the 

 dai ^erous natui;e of which they seem fully capable of 

 HP; leciating. 



That it is the instrument, and not the man, which 

 they avoid, is evident from their following the heels of 

 the peaceable ploughman along the furrow, sometimes 

 taking short flights after him, and each rook showing 

 some degree of eagerness to be nearest the ploughman, 

 and to have the best chance of being the first to pick up 

 the newly turned up worm, or the grub of the cock- 

 chafer, of which they are very fond. 



Hooks are not easily induced to forsake the trees on 

 which they have been bred, and which they frequently 

 revisit after the breeding season is over. This is shown 

 in Hampton Court Park, where there is an extensive 

 rookery amongst the fine lime-trees, and where a bar- 

 barous and unnecessary custom prevails of shooting the 

 young rooks. As many as a hundred dozen of them 

 have been killed in one season, and yet the rooks build 



the nest which served them for years before, 

 with a little trimming and dressing, will 

 serve very well again ; the difficulty of nest- 

 ling lies only upon the young ones, who have 



in the avenue, though there is a corresponding avenue 

 close by, in Bushy Park, which they never frequent, 

 notwithstanding the trees are equally high and equally 

 secure. I never hear the guns go off during this annual 

 slaughter without execrating the practice, and pitying 

 the poor rooks, whose melancholy cries may be heard to 

 a great distance, and some of whom may be seen, ex- 

 hausted by their fruitless exertions, sitting melancholy 

 on a solitary tree waiting till the sport is over, that they 

 may return and see whether any of the offspring which 

 they have reared with so much care and anxiety are 

 left to them ; or, what is more probable, the call for 

 assistance of their young having ceased, they are aware 

 of their fate, and are sitting in mournful contemplation 

 of their loss. This may appear romantic, but it is 

 nevertheless true : and whoever, like myself, has ob- 

 served the habits and manners of the rook, and wit- 

 nessed their attachment to each other and to their 

 young, and is convinced, as I am, that they have the 

 power of communication by means of a language known 

 to themselves, and are endowed with a knowledge and 

 foresight most extraordinary, will take as much interest 

 in them as I have confessed that I do. 



Some farmers have a very mistaken notion that 

 rooks are injurious to them. They certainly now and 

 then feed on grain, but the damage they may do in this 

 respect is much more than counterbalanced by the good 

 they do in destroying the grubs of the cockchafer and 

 beetles, and other insects which are injurious to the 

 farmer. 



Rooks are known to bury acorns, and I believe wal- 

 nuts also, as I have observed them taking ripe walnuts 

 from a tree and returning to it before they could have 

 had time to break them and eat the contents. Indeed, 

 when we consider how hard the shell of a walnut is, it 

 is not easy to guess how the rook contrives to break them. 

 May they not, by first burying them, soften the shells, 

 and afterwards return to feed upon them ? 



The Reverend W. Bingley, an amiable naturalist, 

 has observed, " that 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, tremu- 

 lous voice and fluttering wiijgs, and all the little blan- 

 dishments that are expressed by the young while in a 

 helpless state, and that this gallant deportment of the 

 male is continued through the whole season of incuba- 

 tion." 



I must, however, add that my friends the rooks are 

 somewhat given to thieving, and I am afraid that if 

 both the birds left the nest at the same time, some of 

 the other members of the community would soon deprive 

 them of those sticks which they had collected with so 

 much trouble. One of the birds is, therefore, always 

 left to protect their property. 



Rooks feed on various kinds of food, as well as worms. 

 They are sad depredators on my cherry trees, attacking 

 them early in the morning, and carrying oft' great quan- 

 tities. They will also eat potatoes and pears, taking 

 them away in their beaks. The grub of the cockchafer, 

 however, seems to be their favourite food, and their 

 search for it, especially in old mossy grass fields, may 

 be seen by the little tufts of moss which are pulled up 

 by them and scattered about. Their power of discover- 

 ing this caterpillar by the scent is very extraordinary. 

 A gentleman once showed me a field which had all the 

 appearance of having been scorched, as if by a burning 

 sun in dry hot weather. The turf peeled from the 

 ground as if it had been cut with a turfing spade, and 

 we then discovered that the roots of the grass had been 



