274 ANIMAL INTELLiaENCE. 



that they wish to render him assistance by hovering over him^ 

 or sometimes making a dart from the air close up to him, ap- 

 parently to try and find out the reason why he did not follow 

 them. ... I have seen one of my labourers pick up a rook 

 which he had shot at for the purpose of putting him up as a 

 scarecrow in a field of wheat, and while the poor wounded bird 

 was still fluttering in his hand, I have observed one of his com- 

 panions make a wheel round in the air, and suddenly dart past 

 him so as almost to touch him, perhaps with the last hope that 

 he might still afibrd assistance to his unfortunate mate or com- 

 panion. Even when the dead bird has been hung, in terror em, 

 to a stake in the field, he has been visited by some of his former 

 friends, but as soon as they found that the case was hopeless, 

 they have generally abandoned that field altogether. 



When one considers the instinctive care with which rooks 

 avoid any one carrying a gun, and which is so evident that I 

 have often heard country people remark that a rook can smell 

 gunpowder, one can more justly estimate the force of their love 

 or friendship in thus continuing to hover round a person who 

 has just destroyed one of their companions with an instrument 

 the dangerous nature of which they seem fully capable of appre- 

 ciating. ^ 



The justice of these remarks may be better appreciated 

 in the light of the following very remarkable observation, 

 as an introduction to which I have quoted them. 



Edward, the naturalist, having shot a tern, which fell 

 winged into the sea, its companions hovered around the 

 floating bird, manifesting much apparent solicitude, as 

 terns and gulls always do under such circumstances. How 

 far this apparent solicitude is real I have often speculated, 

 as in the analogous case of the crows — wondering whether 

 the emotions concerned were really those of sympathy or 

 mere curiosity. The following observation, however, seems 

 to set this question at rest. Having begun to make pre- 

 parations for securing the wounded bird, Edward says : ' I 

 expected in a few moments to have it in my possession, 

 being not very far from the water's edge, and drifting 

 shorewards with the wind.' He continues: — 



While matters were in this position I beheld, to my utter 

 astonishment and surprise, two of the un wounded terns take 



^ Glea7iings, pp. 58-9. 



