138 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



I can quite give credit to this anecdote, for I have 

 known two similar cases in which one rook was detected 

 stealing sticks from another ; in both instances, however, 

 the punishment was inflicted by more than the injured 

 bird, and in one case with such severity that the offender's 

 life was forfeited. I have more than once seen a rook 

 chased from a rookery by a number of its inhabitants, 

 but whether the hostility was shown because he was a 

 stranger or a criminal I could not discover, but most 

 likely the latter. 



Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, 

 says that " in Scotland the crows, who take such good 

 care to keep out of gunshot on every ' lawful day/ on 

 the Sabbath come close up to the houses, and seek their 

 food within a few yards of the farmer and his men, dis- 

 covering the occurrence of the sacred day from the ring- 

 ing the bells and the discontinuance of labour in the 

 fields, and knowing that while it lasts they are safe." 



Various instances have been recorded of rooks eating 

 eggs, and I once saw a pair on the 4th of June actively 

 engaged for some time in chasing a pair of green plovers 

 in a field on the verge of the forest. They were evi- 

 dently bent on driving them away from a particular 

 spot, which the plovers seemed as determined not to 

 leave, and from their pertinacity I concluded that their 

 nest was thereabouts, and that they suspected the rooks 

 of a wish to plunder it, a conclusion which was no doubt 

 correct. 



The rook is occasionally subject to variations of 

 plumage, and the saying of " as black as a crow" is not 

 always applicable. In March, 1 860, one was killed near 

 us which was uniformly speckled with white. 



I have already said that I think the Jackdaw (G. 



