"THE CLANGING ROOKERY" 441 



observation of these more or less corporate proceed- 

 ings leads us to liken them to nothing so much as to 

 one of those " rags " that periodically mark the annals 

 of Army, University, or public school. The original 

 rook attracts the attention of some self-constituted 

 band of confederates, and the community is too little 

 sympathetic to interfere in the individual's behalf. 

 Let us hope that " rag " justice is somehow leading 

 the rook towards some higher plane of civilisation. 



It is not so much the bird's crimes against his 

 fellows as his offences against mankind that concern 

 the gardener. The rook has received the name of 

 frugilegus, or fruit-collector. We know how worthy 

 the name is when the walnuts are a little beyond the 

 pickling stage. Then a frequent joy with him is to 

 take an acorn or other handy object and play ball 

 with it, dropping it for another to dive after it head- 

 long, and become the dropper in turn. And a careful 

 and apparently conscientious observer startled the 

 world the other day with the theory that in spring 

 rooks use small seed potatoes as gauges wherewith to 

 get the dimensions of their nests right, choosing the 

 tubers according to their memory of what an egg is, 

 and then throwing them away with the rejected sticks 

 that lie beneath their nesting-trees. Those potatoes, 

 like the trials by jury, are something for the curious 

 and not too sceptical to look for. 



We do not value the rook for his fruit-collecting 

 qualities, but his Latin name appeals vaguely to us as 

 a shield of virtue. We expect him to collect wire- 

 worms and other grubs that we sometimes fail to 

 recognise as a carnal diet. And now we are finding, 

 as though it were a new fact, that the rook is so crow- 



