384 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE 



well worth deciphering, as the cuneiforms of ancient 

 Assyria or the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. 

 " Depend upon it," used to say Bishop Westcott, 

 a delighted and life-long observer of the bird and 

 not least, in his latest days, in the palace at Bishop's 

 Auckland, " Depend upon it, the rook has a deep 

 purpose in everything which he does." He was 

 especially pleased to find that the rooks which 

 had deserted the palace rookery on the death 

 of Bishop Van Mildert, the last of the " Prince 

 Bishops," in 1836, returned to it some fifty years 

 later, soon after the beginning of his own episco- 

 pate. He used to watch them every morning 

 through his window. Did they resent, I wonder, 

 in the one case, the curtailment of the splendour of 

 the see by the loss of its emoluments ? Did they 

 rejoice, in the other, at the advent of one, who, 

 besides being a student of their polity, was destined 

 to give to the see, as scholar, statesman, and saint in 

 one, an almost unprecedented influence and dignity ? 

 A continuous calendar of the doings of the rook 

 would be as interesting, I think, as the calendar 

 kept by old Gilbert White of the doings of his old 

 tortoise, Timothy. They often amuse themselves, 

 for a good part of the day, by soaring high in air, 

 almost out of sight, and then, from time to time, by 



