often repeated become signals or watch-words to 

 keep them together, that they may not stray or lose 

 each other in the dark. 



The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of rooks 

 are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before 

 dusk they return in long strings from the foraging 

 of the day, and rendezvous by thousands over Sel- 

 borne-down, where they wheel round in the air, and 

 sport, and dive, in a playful manner, all the while 

 exerting their voices, and making a loud cawing, 

 which, being blended and softened by the distance 

 that we at the village are below them, becomes a 

 confused noise or chiding; or rather a pleasing mur- 

 mur, very engaging to the imagination, and not un- 

 like the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing 

 woods ; or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or 

 the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When 

 this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, 

 they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods 

 of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl 

 who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on 

 such an occurrence, in the true spirit of physico- 

 theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers ; 

 and yet this child was much too young to be aware 

 that the Scriptures have said of the Deity — that " He 

 feedeth the ravens who call upon Him." 



29 171 



