ROOKS* JUSTICE. 161 



and come to the simple belief that we have not made 

 a single step toward the discovery of the causes of 

 animal action ; and therefore that our surest plan will 

 be to observe for a long time yet, before we come to 

 any positive conclusion. 



There is another matter upon which a great deal has 

 been said, and that is the sense not only of wrong, but 

 of retributive justice, that exists in the assemblage of 

 rooks. There are well authenticated instances in which 

 pairs have been expelled from the community by the 

 force of numbers, and compelled to form their nests at 

 a distance, even out of the wood that they had been 

 produced in ; and some of the colonies that we have 

 alluded to were begun in this manner. This is a sort 

 of banishment or expatriation; and it is so analagous to 

 the forcible colonization of a New England or a New 

 Holland, that it is very natural to suppose that the 

 transported rooks, had offended against the laws, as 

 well as the transported Britons. There are other 

 instances in which emigration has been prohibited; 

 and a pair who had attempted to build a nest on a 

 separate tree, have had their nests pulled to pieces, and 

 themselves forced back to the old locality. This again 

 bears some analogy to those laws among mankind 

 w hereby an artificer is prevented from leaving the 

 country, or a labourer from seeking employment out of 

 the parish ; and, as such, is very naturally explained 

 upon the same principle, by those who regard all the 

 creatures as humble imitators of man. But farther, 

 the rooks in the construction of their nests, are not very 

 punctilious in the regard to the law of meum and tuum ; 

 and will not fail to purloin a stick from the fabric of 

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