THE COMMON ROOK. 181 



The rook entices its young from the breeding 

 trees, as soon as they can flutter to any other. 

 These young, for a few evenings after their flight, 

 will return with their parents, and roost where they 

 were bred ; but they soon quit their abode, and 

 remain absent the whole of the summer months. 

 As soon, however, as the heat of summer is sub- 

 dued, and the air of autumn felt, they return and 

 visit their forsaken habitations, and some few of 

 them even commence the repair of their shattered 

 nests ; but this meeting is very differently conducted 

 from that in the spring ; their voices have now a 

 mellowness approaching to musical, with little ad- 

 mixture of that harsh and noisy contention, so dis- 

 tracting at the former season, and seems more like a 

 grave consultation upon future procedure ; and as 

 winter approaches they depart for some other place. 

 The object of this meeting is unknown ; nor are we 

 aware that any other bird revisits the nest it has 

 once forsaken. Domestic fowls, indeed, make use 

 again of their old 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 universally 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 



