376 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE 



advance of the colony, and without its formal leave, 

 the rooks assemble on the disputed tree, and discuss 

 the matter, like so many sanitary inspectors, in all 

 its bearings, and end by " certificating " or con- 

 demning it. " Not guilty, but don't do it again," 

 seems sometimes to be the burden of their verdict ; 

 for it does not follow, even if the young are safely 

 reared in the tree licensed for that year, that it will 

 be occupied again the next. Something, perhaps, 

 may have happened in the interim which makes the 

 senators determine that it is unfit for rook occupa- 

 tion. Sometimes, so I have been told by one who 

 watched them narrowly in early youth, a solitary 

 position far from the rookery is assigned as a 

 punishment to an obstinate marauder who has 

 committed the unpardonable fault of being found 

 out once too often. Social ostracism for the 

 breeding season must be a severe penalty to a 

 bird so eminently sociable as the rook ; but, like 

 ostracism at Athens, it seems to be carefully 

 divested of all painful consequences afterwards ; 

 for, as soon as the young are flown, the culprit is 

 allowed to return to the community, with all his 

 old rights and privileges unimpaired. Unlike 

 Draco of Athens, whose laws were said to be 

 written, not in ink but in blood, and who 



