OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY. 207 



the other, that at the first glance or so you cannot 

 distinguish them apart. Yet if you should be linger- 

 ing along the by-ways of the fields as the acorns fall, 

 and the leaves come rustling down in the warm sunny 

 autumn afternoons, and keep an observant eye upon 

 the rooks in the trees, or on the fresh-turned furrows, 

 they will be seen to act in couples. On the ground 

 couples alight near each other, on the trees they perch 

 near each other, and in the air fly side by side. Like 

 soldiers each has his comrade. Wedged in the ranks 

 every man looks like his fellow, and there seems no 

 tie between them but a common discipline. Intimate 

 acquaintance with barrack or camp life would show 

 that every one had his friend. There is also the 

 mess, or companionship of half a dozen, a dozen, or 

 more, and something like this exists part of the year 

 in the armies of the rooks. After the nest time is 

 over they flock together, and each family of three or 

 four flies in concert. Later on they apparently choose 

 their own particular friends, that is the young birds 

 do so. All through the winter after, say October, 

 these pairs keep together, though lost in the general 

 mass to the passing spectator. If you alarm them 

 while feeding on the ground in winter, supposing you 

 have not got a gun, they merely rise up to the nearest 

 tree, and it may then be observed that they do this in 

 pairs. One perches on a branch and a second comes 

 to him. When February arrives, and they resort to 

 the nests to look after or seize on the property there, 

 they are in fact already paired, though the almanacs 

 put down St. Valentine's day as the date of courtship. 

 There is very often a warm interval in February, 



