WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 269 



To appreciate this effort on the part of the old birds, 

 it must be recollected that immediately after the first 

 shot the great mass of the old rooks fly off in alarm. 

 They go to some distance and then wheel round and 

 come back at an immense height, and there, collected 

 in loose order, circle round and round, cawing as they 

 sail. For an old rook to remain in or near the rookery 

 when once the firing has commenced is the exception, 

 and must be a wonderful effort of moral courage, for 

 of all birds rooks seem most afraid of a gun ; and 

 naturally so, having undergone, when themselves 

 young, a baptism of fire. Those that escape slaughter 

 are for the most part early birds that come to maturity 

 before the majority, and so leave the trees before the 

 date fixed for shooting arrived, or acquire a power of 

 flight sufficient to follow their parents on the first 

 alarm to a safe distance. They have therefore a good 

 opportunity of witnessing the destruction of their 

 cousins, and do not forget the lesson. 



Although the young birds upon getting out of the 

 nest under ordinary conditions seem to like to wander, 

 yet if they are driven out or startled by the shot they 

 do not then at once endeavour to make for the open 

 country or to spread abroad, but appear rather to 

 cling to the place, as if the old nests could shelter 

 them. After a while they begin to understand the 

 danger of this proceeding, and half an hour's rapid 

 firing causes the birds to spread about and get into 

 the trees in the hedges at some distance. There, of 

 course s they are pursued, or killed the next day, three- 



