188 THE COMMON ROOK. 



nests ; but this is never, or only occasionally, done 

 by birds in a wild state. The daw and rock 

 pigeon will build in society with their separate 

 kindred ; and the former even revisits in autumn 

 the places it had nestled in. But such situations 

 as these birds require, the ruined castle, abbey, or 

 church tower, ledge in the rock, &c., are not uni- 

 versally found, and are apparently occupied from 

 necessity. The rooks appear to associate from 

 preference to society, as trees are common every 

 where ; but what motive they can have in view in 

 lingering thus for a few autumnal mornings and 

 counselling with each other around their aban- 

 doned and now useless nests, which before the 

 return of spring are generally beaten from the trees, 

 is by no means manifest to us. 



The sense of smelling seems often to supply in 

 animals the want of faculties they are not gifted 

 with ; and it is this power which directs them to 

 their food with greater certainty, than the discern- 

 ment of man could do. That we have every 

 faculty given us necessary for the condition in 

 which we are placed is manifest 5 yet the mechani- 

 cal talents and intuition of the insect, the powers 

 that birds and beasts possess, and the superior 

 acuteness of some of their senses, of which, per- 

 haps, we have little conception, makes it evident 

 that all created things were equally the objects of 

 their Maker's benevolence and care ; the worm 



