HABITS OF ROOKS. 159 



of the old ones, especially that of the males, whose 

 wings and tails often begin to show blanks, about the 

 close of their annual labours. When the young have 

 become quite independent of their parents, the colony 

 break up for a season, and each seeks a place for itself; 

 the old being more retired as the season of the moult 

 approaches, and the young more frequently seen. 

 Numbers of them return to the nursing wood, to 

 perch during the season, but they pay no attention 

 to the nests, and as their departure is at early dawn, 

 and then return from all points of the compass, they are 

 not much noticed. The return at that season is not, 

 however, general or necessary, for they roost in any 

 convenient tree near the place where they have been 

 feeding last in the evening. 



October may be considered as the average time at 

 which they again assemble ; but the time varies with 

 the season. If the cold begin sooner they are earlier ; 

 but they are proofs and not prognostics of the change. 

 Rooks are great frequenters of the sea shore, when 

 their rookeries are advantageously situated for it. 

 They find a great deal of food there, though probably 

 not so much as the other crows. When the tide is 

 back, they may be seen working for insects among the 

 sea-weed, and picking up cockles, whelks, and limpets. 

 The cockle they can easily open ; and if they can de- 

 tach the limpet from the rock, it needs no opening, but 

 it is said to be sometimes too much for them, and to 

 embrace the rock with so much force, that the point of 

 their bill under the shell cannot be withdrawn ; and so 

 they are retained and drowned by the tide, and after- 

 wards feed those upon whom they had been previously 



Q 



