124 ROOKS. 



their roosting places, of the regular armies going forth each in its 

 own regular route, leaving companies at regular spots as they pro- 

 ceed, and regularly picking up those companies as regularly on the 

 evening return flight. Then he tries to explain how all this arose. 

 Rooks, he considers, are slaves to tradition. 



Now, in the part of the South of England of which he writes 

 many great throws of timber have taken place, destroying or dis- 

 turbing various rookeries. The winter trysting wood is one which 

 has not had much fall of timber in it. This immunity, Jeffries 

 thinks, has led to its choice as the rooks' national gathering place 

 their folk-moot. But they forget not the old sites of the des- 

 troyed rookeries. The descendants of their former denizens stop at 

 those sites, respectively, to feed. Moreover, in spite of timber 

 throws, it is in that line of country that there are still the most 

 trees for spring nesting. This, too, draws particular rooks to those 

 particular districts for winter foraging. 



Again, Jeffries thinks that the lines of feeding grounds are lines 

 of country where the first clearing for cultivation took place in 

 very early days, and where, therefore, feeding would then be 

 especially good. So tradition keeps certain rooks to certain an- 

 cestral grounds of theirs. Now, this is most ingenious and 

 extremely likely to be generally true. But it is not true without 

 any exception. It is my object to speak of an exception. Years 

 ago I lived in Scotland near the winter rendezvous of a countless 

 host of rooks. The roosting place was in a particular part of a 

 large wood. That part was far older than the rest, consisting 

 greatly of ancient gnarled beeches. It seems to me to be the 

 senior wood of the neighbourhood ; where all the woods, apart 

 from coppices, were pretty modern, apparently. 



Thus Jeffries' opinion as to choice of tryst was confirmed in the 

 case in question. But what of the morning scattering and evening 

 gathering of the rooks 1 Well, as to one army, which in its tens 

 of thousands came to the wood from the east, Jeffries again was 

 seemingly right. Thereaway is the valley of the Kirkcudbright- 

 shire Dee. And that valley presents likelihoods of the above 



