192 FRESH FIELDS 



very likely four-and-twenty young rooks. Rook- 

 pie is a national dish, and it would seem as if the 

 young birds are slaughtered in sufficient numbers to 

 exterminate the species in a few years. But they 

 have to be kept under, like the rabbits; inasmuch 

 as they do not emigrate, like the people. I had 

 heard vaguely that our British cousins eschewed all 

 pie except rook-pie, but I did not fully realize the 

 fact till I saw them shooting the young birds and 

 shipping them to market. A rookery in one's grove, 

 or shade-trees may be quite a source of profit. The 

 young birds are killed just before they are able to 

 fly, and when they first venture upon the outer rim 

 of the nest or perch upon the near branches. I 

 witnessed this chicken-killing in a rookery on the 

 banks of the Doon. The ruins of an old castle 

 crowned the height overgrown with forest trees. In 

 these trees the rooks nested, much after the fashion 

 of our wild pigeons. A young man with a rifle 

 was having a little sport by shooting the young 

 rooks for the gamekeeper. There appeared to be 

 fewer than a hundred nests, and yet I was told that 

 as many as thirty dozen young rooks had been shot 

 there that season. During the firing the parent 

 birds circle high aloft, uttering their distressed 

 cries. Apparently, no attempt is made to conceal 

 the nests ; they are placed far out upon the branches, 

 several close together, showing as large dense masses 

 of sticks and twigs. Year after year the young are 

 killed, and yet the rookery is not abandoned, nor 

 the old birds discouraged. It is to be added that 



