WRECK AMONG ROOKS 71 



tribulation to Chaucer's ' crow with voice of care ' ; 

 for the violent gale which swept over the Midlands 

 on Sunday the 24th not only levelled many of the 

 finest trees in the rookeries of Warwickshire and 

 Berkshire, but tore hundreds of nests, laboriously 

 brought to completion, out of the branches of those 

 left standing, scattering the material in shapeless 

 ruin, just as the birds were beginning to lay. On 

 the whole, rooks have fared scurvily this season. 

 Thousands perished in the mighty gale which 

 visited Scotland on December 22. They were killed 

 by falling trees, or blown from their roosts and 

 dashed against the swaying boughs. For days after 

 that memorable night, the woods were full of piteous 

 cripples, broken-winged, which, except those that 

 were mercifully put to death, eked out a miserable 

 existence, till the great frost came to put an end to 

 their suffering. Others, again, were blown into the 

 water and drowned. In Lord Stair's beautiful 

 grounds at Castle Kennedy in Wigtownshire, there 

 is a large rookery on an island in one of the lakes. 

 The day after the storm, the gardeners collected the 

 corpses of upwards of five hundred rooks, washed up 

 on the lee shore. 



