field mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. 

 This piece of intelligence can be little depended on ; 

 but further inquiry may be made. 



A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two 

 milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, 

 finding them before they were unable to fly, threw 

 them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the 

 owner, who would have been glad to have preserved 



such a curiosity in 



A white rook. 



his rookery. I saw 

 the birds myself 

 nailed against the 

 end of a barn, and 

 was surprised to 

 find that their bills, 

 legs, feet, and claws 

 were milk-white. 



[Rooks are con- 

 tinually fighting 

 and pulling each other's nests to pieces : these 

 proceedings are inconsistent with living in such 

 close community. And yet if a pair offer to build 

 on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demol- 

 ished at once. Some rooks roost on their nest 

 trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in build- 

 ing supply the poor with brushwood to light their 

 fires. Some unhappy pairs are not permitted to 

 finish any nest till the rest have completed their 

 building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, 



58 



