1 80 OMXIVOILE. 



hatched. There they assemble, and remain for some time in 

 solemn deliberation (as some say) upon the conduct of the 

 campaign, and make a solemn inquest into the southern 

 "foray," with grave judges, brawling counsel, anxious clients, 

 and all the paraphernalia of a court of justice, with the 

 exception of witnesses, and of these even Landt maketh no 

 mention. Some also are left for execution no, left executed ; 

 for the dead bodies are left on the place of meeting, as food 

 for any creatures which may be fouler feeders than them- 

 selves. 



But all this execution of the law for one campaign, and 

 enacting of it for another, is, in truth, nothing more than the 

 simple and natural operation -of pairing, in the course of 

 which, though they are strictly monogamous and constant, 

 there is some rivalry, duelling, and bloodshed at the outset. 

 The grave judges are, in reality, desponding lovers, rejected 

 swains, and unwooed damsels, whose heads are weighed down, 

 not with wisdom, but with woe ; the wranglers are rivals, 

 settling their affairs of gallantry ; the anxious lookers-on are 

 the females, who are to fall to the lot of the conquerors ; 

 and the dead bodies are the remains of those who have, not 

 ignobly, bled for all-conquering love. 



When all is settled, the pairs wend their several ways over 

 the wild, nestling in the rocks or trees as the one or the other 

 may be most convenient, building the external part of their 

 nests with sticks, after the manner of the rooks, but, contrary 

 to the custom of these, lining it with wool or hair, which they 

 do not hesitate to pull from the back of a sheep or other 

 animal ; and if he be weak, lame, or laired (stuck in the 

 mire), they punch out his eyes into the bargain, and take note 

 of his carcass, as a substantial addition to the larder. 



When one first meets them in scores upon a Highland 

 moor, on a foggy day, having been previously familar with 

 the rooks of a less savage land, one imagines that the crows 



