88 THE ROOK. 



nest is large, composed of sticks, and lined with fibrous roots, 

 long straws, wool, and other substances. The eggs are four or 

 five in number, an inch and ten-twelfths long, an inch and a 

 quarter broad, colour light greenish blue, blotched, clouded, 

 spotted, dotted, or freckled, with greyish and greenish brown, 

 and light purplish grey. 



ADDITIONAL. PENNANT informsus that the Rook, or Bare-faced 

 Crow, as it is sometimes called, is the Cervus of VIEGIL, being the 

 only species of this family of birds which is strictly gregarious, 

 and which therefore answers the description of the Latin poet, 

 who very naturally describes their evening return to their nests, 

 when 



" rustling on the wing, 

 From their wide plumes the Rooks thick darkness fling." 



"Rooks," says MTJDIE, "have a history which is neither brief 

 nor void of interest ; and they are so numerous, and found in so 

 many places, that any one may study it." As no one has related 

 that history in a more lively and graphic way than this author 

 himself, we cannot do better than refer our readers to his interest- 

 ing work on the Feathered Tribes of Britain, before alluded to. 



The Rook is a social bird ; he builds his nest very commonly 

 in the immediate vicinity of human habitations ; he is often to 

 be found surrounded by his cawing progeny in the very midst 

 of crowded cities. YAEBELL tells us that " In the spring of 1838, 

 a pair of Rooks began to form a nest in the crown which sur- 

 mounts the vane of St. Olave's church, in Hart Street, Crutched 

 Friars ; and many persons remember the nest built in a single 

 and not very lofty tree near the corner of Wood Street, Cheap- 

 side. A few years since, a pair built their nest between the wings 

 of the dragon of Bow Church ; and in the gardens of two noble- 

 men in Curzon Street, May Fair, a considerable number of 

 Rooks have built for many years, and these probably received an 

 addition at the destruction of the rookery in the gardens of 

 Carlton House." We have it on the authority of ME. BLACK- 

 WELL, a contributor to the Zoological Journal, that some low 

 Italian poplars, in a central part of the town of Manchester, were 

 for awhile the chosen breeding- place of three pairs of these birds ; 

 and on that of BEWICK, that a nest built by a pair of Rooks on 

 the top of the vane of- the Exchange, in JN ewcastle-upon-Tyne, 

 was tenanted for ten successive seasons, although turned about 

 with every wind that blew. MACGILLIVEAY also mentions that 

 Rooks build every year in the heart of the city of Edinburgh. 

 LEIGH HUNT, in his Indicator, thus pleasantly alludes to the 

 Rooks of the Temple Gardens. " From Woodcote Green, a 



