Rook Tradition 233 



quiet, and apparently quite as full of food, is deserted; 

 they scarcely come near it. The home-field itself is not 

 the attraction, because other home-fields are not so 

 favoured. 



The tenacity with which rooks cling to localities is 

 often illustrated near great cities where buildings have 

 gradually closed in around their favourite haunts. Yet on 

 the small waste spots covered with cinders and dust-heaps, 

 barren and unlovely, the rooks still alight ; and you may 

 see them, when driven up from such places, perching on 

 the telegraph wires over the very steam of the locomotives 

 as they puff into the station. 



I think that neither considerations of food, water, 

 shelter, nor convenience are always the determining factors 

 in the choice made by birds of the spots they frequent ; 

 for I have seen many cases in which all of these were 

 evidently quite put on one side. Birds to ordinary obser- 

 vation seem so unfettered, to live so entirely without 

 rhyme or reason, that it is difficult to convey the idea that 

 the precise contrary is really the case. 



Eeturning to these two great streams of rooks, which 

 pour every evening in converging currents from the north 

 and east upon the wood ; why do they do this ? Why not 

 go forth to the west, or to the south, where there are hills 

 and meadows and streams in equal number ? Why not 

 scatter abroad, and return according to individual caprice ? 

 Why, to go still further, do rooks manoeuvre in such 

 immense numbers, and crows fly only in pairs? The 

 simple truth is that birds, like men, have a history. They 

 are unconscious of it, but its accomplished facts affect 

 them still and shape the course of their existence. With- 

 out doubt, if we could trace that history back, there are 

 good and sufficient reasons why rooks prefer to fly, in this 



