124 NATURAL HISTORY 



obliged to be noisy ; their notes often re- 

 peated become signals or watch words to 

 keep them together, that they may not stray 

 or lose each other in the dark. 



The evening proceedings and manoeuvres 

 of the rooks are curious and amusing in 

 the Autumn. Just before dusk they return 

 in long strings from the foraging of the 

 day, and rendezvous by thousands over 

 Selborne-dowriy where they wheel round in 

 the air, and sport and dive in a playful 

 manner, all the while exerting their voices, 

 and making a loud cawing, which, being 

 blended and softened by the distance that 

 we at the village are below them, becomes 

 a confused noise or chiding ; or rather a 

 pleasing murmur, very engaging to the 

 imagination, and not unlike the cry of a 

 pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, 

 or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or 

 the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly 

 shore. When this ceremony is over, with 

 the last gleam of day, they retire for the 

 night to the deep beechen woods of Tisted 

 and Ropley, We remember a little girl who, 



