370 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAJVTS MELCOMBE 



long, rather rasping song, or the reed-warbler with 

 its exquisite little nest, suspended within four 

 reeds, or the black-headed bunting, their frequent 

 companion. 



On the other hand, there is, to begin with, a 

 large rookery ; and no true lover of birds can have 

 a rookery in his immediate neighbourhood without 

 finding, during three months of the year at least, 

 ample material for observation, for speculation, for 

 amusement, for delight. We think we know the 

 rook well, and there are few people, living even 

 in the murkiest of towns, who can be wholly 

 ignorant of his general look, who have never seen 

 his nest, or heard his caw. But who has ever been 

 able to get to the bottom of his character, or can 

 reconcile the many contradictions in it ? A bird 

 so friendly and so sociable and yet so litigious ; 

 so fearless of man during one quarter of the year, 

 so shy and so suspicious of him during the 

 remainder ; so staid, so sober, so solemn, so emi- 

 nently respectable in appearance, and yet so droll 

 and so unconventional in all his movements ; so 

 aristocratic in his tastes and tendencies, and yet so 

 democratic in his polity ; so tenderly solicitous for 

 his young, as long as they are in the nest, or 

 perching above and around it, yet so callous to 



