56 BIEDS IN LONDON 



like a pack of aerial hounds in hot pursuit of 

 some invisible quarry. 



A still greater excitement is exhibited by 

 these somewhat depressed and sedentary Ken- 

 sington birds on the appearance of a flight of 

 rooks ; for rooks, sometimes in considerable 

 numbers, do occasionally visit or pass over 

 London, and keep, when travelling east or west, 

 to the wide green way of the central parks. 

 Now there are few more impressive spectacles in 

 bird life in this country than the approach of a 

 large company of rooks ; their black forms, that 

 loom so large as they successively appear, follow 

 each other with slow deliberate motion at long 

 intervals, moving as in a funeral procession, with 

 appropriate solemn noises, which may be heard 

 when they are still at a great distance. They 

 are chanting something that corresponds in the 

 corvine world to our Dead March in ' Saul.' 

 The coming sound has a magical effect on the 

 daws ; their answering cries ring out loud and 

 sharp, and hurriedly mounting to a considerable 

 height in the air, they go out to meet the pro- 

 cessionists, to mix with and accompany them a 

 distance on the journey. It is to me a wonderful 

 sight more wonderful here in Kensington 



