58 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



we might know what all rooks had once been. The 

 present natural history book contents itself with a 

 summary of the general habits of each species, as far 

 as these are known or surmised, or rather as far as 

 one compiler may learn them from another specula 

 steculorum. It is to be hoped that, some day in the 

 future, a work may be attempted which will record 

 those variations from the general mode of life, which 

 have been observed and noted down by successive 

 generations of field-naturalists. A collection of 

 these would help as much, perhaps, to solve some 

 of the problems of affinity, as the dissection of the 

 body, and there would be this advantage in the 

 method, viz., that any species under discussion would 

 be less likely to leave a still further gap in the 

 various classificatory systems, by disappearing during 

 the process of investigation. 



I have said that rooks and crows meet and 

 mingle together, as though they were of the same 

 species, but is there, to the boot of this, some special 

 relation what, it would puzzle me to say existing 

 between them ? I remember once, whilst standing 

 under a willow tree by the little stream here, my 

 attention being attracted by a hooded crow, which, 

 whilst flying, kept uttering a series of very hoarse, 

 harsh cries, " Are-rr, are-rr, are-rr " (or " crar ") 

 the intonation is much rougher and less pleasant 

 than that of rooks. He did not fly right on, and 

 so away, but kept hovering about, in approximately 

 the same place, and still continuing his clamour. 

 I fancied I heard an answer to it from another 

 hooded crow in the distance, and then, all at once, 

 up flew about a score of rooks and joined him. 



