THE EXPLANATION 127 



that they had abandoned the rookery; for they 

 never came back to it. 



Many a naturalist would no doubt say of this rook 

 story that he had heard stories like that before, and 

 decline to believe it; and his reason for disbelieving 

 it would be the same as that of the scientist, or 

 psychologist, for refusing to believe in telepathy — 

 because it is impossible^ or, in other words, because 

 it is inexplicable, which means only that it has 

 not yet been explained. It would not, however, be 

 difficult to find an explanation of the rooks' action 

 in this case when we consider the habits, the instincts, 

 active and dormant, of the bird, and of his nearest 

 corvine relations; for we have seen that the rook 

 is a carrion crow in disguise, even as the crow itself 

 is a lesser raven. I take it that, as in the case of the 

 carrion crow hovering about my friend's house when 

 he was lying at death's door, the effluvium from 

 the sick-room excited them to that crazy pitch; also 

 that it may have been the example of a single bird 

 in the community, one that was more a carrion crow 

 than his fellows, that first set them off; for we know 

 that it is with birds and beasts as with men, that 

 a crazy impulse of one in the crowd will sometimes 

 make the whole crowd crazy. 



Rooks, we know, do occasionally abandon suddenly 

 even a very old rookery for no visible cause, often to 

 the lasting regret of the owner, who has been accus- 

 tomed to have the birds as neighbours from child- 

 hood. Rooks have even been known to forsake a 

 rookery in this sudden way in the breeding season 



